It appears that I've found the fix.
Follow these steps:
1. Enter the game
2. At the log in screen, click "modify" under the serial key entry.
3. Type in your serial with dashes, ALL LOWERCASE
4. THEN retype all user credentials (username and password)
5. Untick the check box next to password, labeled "remember details".
6. THEN re-check the box.
7. Log in.
*Note: If it tells you that your credentials are not correct, re-enter your password.
Let me know if this works. If not, I have a few more solutions. It's possible to get past this error with a little patience. It all has to do with the login screen. Your game isn't broken.
So I've been having the same issues as all of you guys and I tried to fix above by "iggyben" but to no prevail; however, I did modify it a little and it seems to have worked I was able to log online and play matches. I have yet to try my limited edition code yet but this is what I did to get my serial code in use to go away. I am sure this will help majority of you because I was about to call EA and ask them for a new serial code. So I did go back into the game and unchecked the remember details like "iggyben" had suggested and log back in but I kept getting enter your serial code message with the XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX. Basically up to number 3.) of "iggyben" post; however, that did not work, so what I did was go back into multi-player from the single player menu and just enter it again and tell it to remember after I had clicked modify serial code. The enter your serial code thing and I entered it wrong and press enter, this was entering it as lowercase, then I realized that and pressed back. What I noticed was that all the serial codes were now in uppercase. So I made the corrections and adjusted the one letter I left out and moved every character and number over one. I pressed enter and "presto" it worked. I have not had to enter it since. They serial code shows up with XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-(last 5 showing up). Hopefully this works for you guys let me know if it does.