See that beauty of a screenshot up there? Get a really good look at it, because you won't be playing it this year. There was speculation that it would happen -- and it was rumored heavily enough that Activision Blizzard stock dropped 14% throughout July -- and now StarCraft 2 has officially been delayed in the first half of 2010. The first in the trio of StarCraft 2 releases, Wings of Liberty, was to be released later this year, but Blizzard has confirmed the delay.
An official statement from Blizzard PR reads:

Today we announced that StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will not be ready for release by the end of 2009. Over the past couple of weeks, it has become clear that it will take longer than expected to prepare the new Battle.net for the launch of the game. The upgraded Battle.net is an integral part of the StarCraft II experience and will be an essential part of all of our games moving forward. This extra development time will be critical to help us realize our vision for the service.
Our mission is to develop games that deliver an epic entertainment experience. As part of that commitment, we will always take as much time as needed to ensure that our games and services meet the expectations of our players and the standard for quality that we set for ourselves as developers. As we work to make Battle.net the premier online gaming destination, we?ll also continue to polish and refine StarCraft II, and we look forward to delivering a real-time strategy gaming experience worthy of the series? legacy in the first half of 2010.

This is tremendously disappointing news; SC2 was one of the most highly anticipated games of the year. Fans have been waiting for more than 11 years for a sequel to the original, and it looks like that figure might end up being stretched to 12 years. We've got our fingers crossed the game won't suffer any further delays, and likewise that this will be the last game release that gets pushed out of 2009.