Activision has stated that it WILL NOT release before the end of 2013, so i'm hoping for a First Quarter '14 release? Though we don't know for certain. I'd be surprised if there doesn't end up being some form of public beta for us to get into, I mean it IS a persistent online world, so that's going to require more beta and bug testing then they could possibly manage internally.
It's a safe bet that it'll be a good shooter, it's NOT a safe bet that this whole persistent online world aspect will come to fruition in the ways they are telling us it will. It's quite an ambitious project, so a little skepticism is a healthy thing to have.