heh, I got a little lucky with mine. I remember the original thread in the hot deals forum about anyone that bought a high end ATI card (9800xt, 9800pro, 9600xt, 9600pro, etc.) got HL2 coupons. I also remember ATI changing it's policy/promotion or whatever to just 9800xt's and 9600xt's. My local BestBuy still has the original promotion sticker up, which says "Buy a 9800xt/9800pro/etc." and get HL2 free! Expires 1/24/04.
I bought my 9800pro from BB, and it didn't have a sticker on the front... no mention of it anywhere. I took the promotion sticker thing, showed it to the sales person, and he called every BB around asking if any of their 9800 pro boxes had the HL2 stickers on them. Of course none of them did. He tells me well you can try calling ATI, since it's an ATI promotion, and then tried to feed me some BS excuse about limited quantities or whatever, at which point I got mad becuase it says nothing about "while supplies last" or "promotion may change without notice" on the card. Told the guy, if ATI changed it's promotion, then you should have changed the card, because I bought the 9800pro with the intention of recieving HL2. Call manager over, I explain my story again, manager looks at the 9800pro box, see's what i'm talking about, another manager tries to say, well just go to their website, put in your UPC code, and you can download it! I almost laughed at that, but I managed to control myself. Manager finally takes the promotion card and writes an IOU a free copy of HL2 when it comes out, signed it, gave me business card, and off I went.
Sorry for the brag but BestBuy is one store that I will never have trouble trying to get more then my money's worth.