I have been preloading on Steam for the past 80 minutes or so. I am 79% done, but the rate of transfer has dropped precipitously. It has been running less than 100 kb/s for quite some time now. I would guess a lot folks in the US are all trying to preload right before the release hour.
I made sure to do it a few days ago, I didn't want to be struggling through it either. Hopefully you gave yourself enough of a head start though!
Also, a lot of others might not have known what preloading is, and are downloading their copies post-release.
took me 90 minutes last night (started 2am), about normal for a download that size on my "4G" connection. Doesn't release for another 1.5 hours in U.S. so if not many preloaded then it will really slow .
I thought I preloaded a few days ago. When I saw it was ready I clicked play and it's downloading again??? Somewhat frustrating. What's the point of preloading if you still have to download the game?
It still has to load a small file, took about five minutes. If it's redoing the whole thing maybe something was corrupted it does happen occasionally.