Left 4 Dead Pre-Ordering Begins

Christmas is a tough time of year for the dedicated PC gamer. All the best titles madly appear in one giant rush over the last three months, ensuring that no one has enough money to buy all the games they would like to. Someone tell the publishers - somehow this escapes them. But anyhow, the point is, why not, er, spend some of that money a bit earlier. Valve have just announced Left 4 Dead as available for pre-order via Steam.

It's 10% off if bought ahead of release, which makes it $44.99, plus whatever taxes your evil dictatorship leaders impose upon you. Entertainingly quoting himself in a press release he wrote, Valve's Doug Lombardi says,

"With just over four weeks until launch, Left 4 Dead is showing every sign of topping The Orange Box on both the PC and Xbox 360, at retail as well as on Steam. Our pre-sell numbers at retail have jumped to over 65% greater than Orange Box at the same proximity to launch, and we're seeing tremendous enthusiasm for the product in what promises to be another great year for gaming on both platforms."

The show-off. Anyone who had a go at the game at the PC Gamer Showdown will tell you quite how good it is. We'll back that up. There's no word yet whether there will be a beta period for pre-orderers.