I just got my cd earlier this week, but I had to email Sony about it. I sent my card out towards the last of Sept, but never got it. So I emailed Sony, they asked for my address and network adaptor serial #, and voila, a week and a half later, FedEx delivered it. I didn't even get around to playing it till tonight, and it's hella fun. Playing against human opponents is very satisfying in this game.
does it come in a standard PS2 dvd case packaging or is it in some cheap cardboard aol-like case?
Well, it's not in a DVD case (that would be great, though). Is is in a cheap aol-like cardboard, but it's taller. So, theoretically, you could cut the cardboard to fit into a DVD case and make it look sorta like the real thing. It even comes with an instruction booklet to stick inside. It's just that you could only cut it to go on the front and back, but there's nothing to go on the side. It also doesn't have the Playstation 2 stripe across the top like all PS2 games do. It wouldn't have hurt them to made it so you could use it as a complete cover if you wanted to provide your own case to put it in. But it's free, so I'm not complaining!