Following the same strategy EA cited in advertising Mass Effect 2 during the NFL NFC championship game, the publisher says buying Super Bowl ad time for Dante’s Inferno helps it hit a huge audience just prior to launch.  As reported in Ad Age, EA has bought a single slot during the Super Bowl on Feb. 7 to advertise its hack and slash action game hitting shelves two days later.  EA senior product manager Phil Marineau said the ad buy represents the perfect culmination to the nine month marketing push for the game.  Ad Age points to notable numbers garnered by EA’s campaign, one that primarily played on the game’s hell and Satan premise with efforts such as a mock religious protest and a fake bible-themed game.  EA said it has nearly 100,000 preorders for the game, and that it tracked 2.5 million demos downloaded.  It also said the game’s Facebook page has about 5 million followers.  Ad Age paints “Dante’s Inferno” as EA’s God of War slayer, saying the publisher’s decision to buy Super Bowl airtime for its hack-and-slash action game is partly to steal thunder from Sony’s tentpole in the genre.  Sony is releasing the anticipated sequel “God of War III” on March 16.  The news outlet adds that one holdup in EA’s Super Bowl ad plan is CBS likely not approving the game’s Go To Hell slogan.  Marineau said that if that happens, “There will still be a callout to hell” in the ad.  Read more at Ad Age {link no longer active}.