Fingers have been pointing towards the release of Guitar Hero: Van Halen since early March and of course, Activision has kept their lips sealed.

Well, the Santa Monica-based developer has finally decided to officially announced Guitar Hero: Van Halen for a second half 2009 release.

That’s all we have to go by as of now but expect to see some Van Halen signature guitars and normal Guitar Hero pricing when this game drops.

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Here we go again — Joystiq recently noticed that GameStop’s website had a listing for Guitar Hero: Van Halen up for a small period for time. After being discovered, the listing was quickly pulled with no reasoning explained.

See now this is all find and dandy except for one thing, Activision hasn’t said anything at all about Guitar Hero: Van Halen. However, we all know that Activision loves milking the Guitar Hero franchise for all it’s worth so it would make sense that they would come out with another band themed game, right? I mean, there’s a Guitar Hero: Metallica and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith so why not Guitar Hero: Van Halen?

Before it was pulled, the listing had the game set for an August 4th release on the Xbox 360, PS3, PS2, and Wii. Now let’s just wait for Activision’s official announcement.

With Activision busy promoting the Guitar Hero: Metallica game, the rumored Guitar Hero: Van Halen title has been rated by the German Voluntary Monitoring Organization of Entertainment Software (quite a mouthful), though Activision is yet to announce it.

The listing was put up and taken down over the weekend. Fortunately, 1UP was smart enough to take a screenshot of it.

Early rumors pegged the game for release on PS2, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii this August. Activision is yet to breathe a single word of the game.

If this rumor is true theres no question about it, Activision is looking to suck the Guitar Hero franchise for all it’s worth, and I don’t blame them even though these announcements get somewhat repetitive.

Recent speculation suggests that Activision is working on a new Guitar Hero based on popular band Van Halen, appropriately titled Guitar Hero: Van Halen.

Joystiq reports that Guitar Hero: Van Halen will be on it’s way out the door once Guitar Hero: Metallica hits shelves, along with the 50 other Guitar Hero games Activision has in works.