Help with Call Of Duty: Black Ops – CD Key, No Game.

I need help with some stuff that I have doubt about CoD. A while back I used to play CoD 4 but then I changed to WoW and since then I got addictive to it and haven’t played anything else. Yesterday I went to my friends house and he said that he brought CoD Warfare and just couple days back Black Ops. But here is the thing about 3 months he changed his computer from a desktop to a laptop, so he tried to install CoD Modern Wafare and it gives a duplicate cd key error. He said its ok because he is not that much into playing, just casual (I’m mentioned it because has something with what I’m thinking, Ill explain later). But now here its the funny part, he also brought CoD Black Ops to try out, when he installed he said it was laggy, everything was like in slow motion, he got so smiling that he broke the cd ripped the cd case and throw it out, I was like are you crazy? When was that, where is it? He said he put out in the trash 2 days ago, my fisrt reaction was, did it when out already, or still out side? Lol. He thought for a second and told me u must still be there, so we went to look out for ir and I got the cd key in 3 pieces. Now here is the questions:
#1: Can I download the game from here, and install using the cd-key, is there any non cracked, clean version here? #2: Just like his CoD Warfare account gave a cd key duplicate error, which I believe he has a steam account (which I asked, but he said he doesnt remember), but if he had that was no option into the installation process to enter any different data besides the cd-key. Can we only install once? How are we suppost to install the game if a reformat is done?
#3: He said he played for few minutes Black Ops, which gets me thinking that he might also have registered this cd key too, if he did how can we access it?
#4: Correct me if I’m wrong but is CoD integrated with steam now? Do I need it in order to play this game? If I open a account at steam will there be a place to insert a cd-key for in store games purchased? In this case this one.
Anyone that has purchased this game in a box pls let me know what are the register process to it, so Ill have an idea what need to be done.
Thank you in advance.
Answer #1
Since Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty games are installed via Steam.
So the person that registered that key to a particular Steam account must recover it by himself.
Once the key is associated with a account, the key can go to the trash as it can only be used by that account.
I know as I bought a few Steam games on retail.
The first game that I had the problem was SH5 which was already registered to another account, lucky the store manager gave me another one.
Login to that account and just download it as usual. That is how Steam works, you buy a game and link it to an Steam account or you use that Steam account to buy a game online from Steam store. Your friend must remember some of the details he used on his last account, otherwise he will have a big problem. PS: Tell your friend, most new games these days are buggy or require high hardware requirements.
Answer #2
Ty for all the info, I went to check out the steam website and installed the steam client, a while ago I purchase Counter Strike on steam and amazing I got one of my account names/password to get access to it, there I found add a game option, but like u said the key is already registered. Ill call him later on and will make him remember any thing that he might have used. Its been only couple days, he just got think.
At least I see how is the setup process now… TY.