The highly anticipated "Gears of War 3" game isn't supposed to hit the streets until September 20 ... and yet some players have already got their hands on the game. Or rather, they've got their hands on an early version of the game.
The game's developer — Epic Games — said in an official statement that they are investigating how a playable build of "Gears of War 3" wound up on several torrent sites last week.
The leaked version of the game includes the entire single player campaign as well as multiplayer options and is reportedly "buggy as hell". (The game does, after all, still have three months of polish to go).
"We have seen the reports of 'Gears of War 3' content being propped on the Web and are working closely with our security teams and law enforcement to address the situation," read the statement from Epic.
The developer also pointed out: "This content is not from a final build and is not representative of what fans will enjoy when the game launches."
Developed by Epic and published by Microsoft, "Gears of War 3" is a third-person alien killin' shooter and one of the most anticipated game launches of the year. But thanks to the leak, "Gears of War 3" gameplay is now making a splash all over YouTube ... with some of the footage being real and some of it being not-so-real.
Either way, if you don't want your game spoiled early, you'll want to avoid YouTube videos tagged with "Gears of War 3" ... and you'll want to wait for the final, polished product.
Understandably, the game's famed design director — Cliff Bleszinski — was none-too-pleased with the news. He tweeted this to his followers via Twitter: "Please stop asking me about it. Upsetting enough to hear and making more news about it only draws attention. Sad."
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Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter .