Call of Duty's new stupid launcher is a data management nightmare, and it may get worse with Modern Warfare 3

pcgamer.com:

Call of Duty's insatiable hunger for SSD real estate continues. According to official system requirements released by Activision today, all installs of Modern Warfare 3 will first require that you have another program installed: Call of Duty HQ.

If you've been playing Modern Warfare 2 or Warzone the last few months, you're already using Call of Duty HQ. It's essentially just the rebranded main menu for Warzone and MW2 that's capable of launching other CoD games. Modern Warfare 3 will be the first new CoD to require that HQ is installed, and it leaves a large footprint on your SSD—around 45-57GB, according to Activison's numbers. Its mandatory inclusion, as well as the ability to selectively install different pieces of Call of Duty, has resulted in the most convoluted «Storage Space» section in a system requirements grid I've ever seen.

Here's how it breaks down: if you have Warzone and HQ installed already, Modern Warfare 3 will add an additional 78GB, for a total of 149GB. The smallest possible configuration of MW3, with its campaign, co-op, and Warzone all removed, is 79GB (that's CoD HQ's 45GB plus multiplayer's 34GB). 

Those aren't outrageous numbers in our climate of 100GB games, but it raises questions around what exactly CoD HQ is there for. We've known all along that MW2's weapons and loadouts will carry over to MW3, but Activision has maintained that MW3 is a full «premium» game of its own. The Battle.net launcher begs to differ: Modern Warfare 3 falls under the banner of all «Call of Duty» content on the launcher as an optional install. In other words, it's an expansion. 

That's troubling news as a PC CoD player, because it suggests the convoluted process for playing the MW3 beta a few weeks ago might carry