Update: Web site hints that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 will be announced soon (or not?)

Activision Blizzard is starting its slow strip tease leading up to the launch of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, which is expected to debut this fall.

That’s a big deal because Modern Warfare 2 was one of the best-selling video games of all time and Activision Blizzard has all but promised its investors that a Call of Duty game will come out every year. The Modern Warfare series has a different storyline than Call of Duty Black Ops, the best-selling game of the holidays for 2010.

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The company has created a mysterious web site, www.findmarkarov.com, which has nothing but a running timer. It also sent dog tags to the press with the site printed on it. Makarov was one of the enemies in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, which debuted two years ago and was the last game made by game studio Infinity Ward. Since this fall will be two years later, Infinity Ward is due to ship another game. Black Ops was made by sister studio Treyarch.

Activision Blizzard may reveal the game during the Game Developers Conference next week. That’s what it did in 2009 when it revealed Modern Warfare 2 for the first time. Raven Software and Sledgehammer games are reportedly helping Infinity Ward finish the game.

The font for the counter uses the typical Call of Duty style. And teasers are pretty common in the video game industry as multimillion dollar marketing campaigns for blockbuster games begin far ahead of the launch date for a game, in hopes of spreading awareness far and wide.

[Update: Game TV show host Geoff Keighley of GTTV on Spike TV reports on his own Gameslice web site that Findmakarov.com has nothing to do with Activision Blizzard or Call of Duty. Rather, he says the web site is the work of We Can Pretend, an independent Toronto, Canada-based creative collective that is expected to launch a project “inspired by Call of Duty on March 2.”