One of my good friends and his cousin got their hands on this game today. Apparently some Northeastern states got to get their hands on the game early.
http://kotaku.com/5399552/northeast-us-gamestops-selling-modern-warfare-2-early
I live in the South unfortunately. But I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw my friends online. So my friend and I took a trip to a local Gamestop. The guys behind the counter proceeded to tell us that it's only a rumor that some Gamestops are selling the game early. And that there was a press release from Corporate to not sell the game early. Well we told him we saw our friends on xbox live and were playing it and my friend said "yea i talked to my brother, who told me he already bought it." I even had a picture on my camera to prove that some people already had it. They still wouldn't sell it to us.
But there are quite a few people who already had the game. My friend was ranked 56000th with like a 4000 multiplayer score. So there are already a ton of people playing it.