Savvy shoppers buy MW2 for £25

Smart consumers are taking advantage of various offers at retail to buy Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for less than half the recommended retail price.

The publisher has been heavily criticised for pushing up the console RRP of the latest from Infinity Ward to £54.99, but a cut-throat retail market is providing consumers with a number of options to avoid paying the inflated price.

UK retailer Gamestation is currently offered the game for £4.99 if a consumer trades in two games from a list that includes WET, Overlord II and Sacred 2: Fallen Angel. With Play.com selling Overlord II for just £9.99, users on website hotukdeals have already begun buying two copies of the Codemasters' title and trading it in for a pre-ordered copy Modern Warfare 2.

Online retailers are currently offering the basic Modern Warfare game for around £45, but all eyes will be on the supermarkets, which have already slashed two big releases – FIFA 2010 and Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising – in order to grab sales.

Last week, ASDA admitted that it sells some games at a loss because "customers continue to tell us that computer games are an expensive product in today's economic climate so we are working hard to try and offer them consistently good value for money within the games category".