During a brief period of fiscal insanity, EA decided to offer a free copy of Battlefield 3 to Origin pre-orderers of Mass Effect 3. That period has now ended, unfortunately, according to a tweet from EA's Origin account. Moreover, pre-orders won't receive a code to download BF3 immediately, but rather "by March 8th." So, just in time to play Battlefield instead of Mass Effect 3, then? That seems ... unfortunate.

Bizarrely, EA originally claimed the deal would extend until March 5, though it seems that the publisher decided to cut it early. Regardless, Origin's tweet went up about 18 hours ago (around 2PM ET yesterday), so it stands to reason that the window of time for a free copy of BF3 was somewhere between Valentine's Day and yesterday afternoon. EA says that "all pre-orders made during the deal" will snag a free code, so, uh, hopefully that's you!