You can play Call of Duty: Black Ops without Steam ?

_{by Jonas}

A German website claims that at Gamescom JD_2020 categorically ruled out a tie-in with Steam.

Es wird, und da war Josh Olin recht schnell mit der Antwort, KEINE (!) Steampflicht geben. Es wird zwar ebenfalls auf Steam eine Version geben, die allerdings eben eher der Vollständigkeit halber vorhanden ist.

When translated you get this :

There will be, and Josh was quite quick on this answer, NO forced Steam.  However, there will be a Steam Version, but thats more of a completion thing.

It means is that you won't have to be running Steam to play the game. 

The FULL Call of Duty: Black Ops Multiplayer Details will be revealed on September 1st.