I've preordered my copy of NV through Game.co.uk and normally it arrives on the Thursday when official release is on the Friday. Now I just discovered I have to activate it through Steam, will I be able to do this on the Thursday? Or will I have to wait til midnight on the Friday (or later) before it will activate in the UK?

The game is locked on Steam until the official release date, which is usually at midnight.

Not all Steam sites have announced early download. At least I did not see it, but I am not getting it from Steam. So, I may not be able to see the download schedule.

However, those that do have it (I have heard UK and Australia from the boards) the game will not activate or be playable until Midnight on the release day, well, morning of the release day. I will close this thread as we have a few others on this topic.