AC

The troops will be lining up tonight to heed the Call of Duty. The latest installment in the military video game series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 ($60, for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, $50 for Wii, ages 17-up), hits stores at midnight. Late-night sales at retailers such as Best Buy, GameStop and Walmart will jump-start what's expected to be the year's No. 1 title. Publisher Activision Blizzard says pre-orders are ahead of last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops, which sold 25 million units (more than $1.5 billion) and supplanted the previous record holder, 2009's Modern Warfare 2, as the top-selling game ever. "It's pretty clear there is demand in the 25 million unit range," says Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. "Last year, Black Ops sold 17 million at holiday and another 8 million in the first half of 2011. Modern Warfare 3 should sell at least 18 million at holiday, and we'll see what its legs are." Numbers like that compare with global box office figures for...