The two day head-start for those who opted for the Limited Edition of Medal of Honor or pre-ordered is now over, and everyone is now free to experience the Battlefield 3 beta for themselves.

Xbox 360 owners can find the 1.3GB beta download here (courtesy of Major Nelson) and get downloading.

PlayStation 3 owners will have to wait a bit longer to download the beta from the PlayStation Store; trying right now will yield an error about not having access. That's just as well, as Sony announced on Twitter that PSN will be undergoing maintenance for a few hours from 9am to 11am Pacific. That means you'll likely be waiting until this afternoon at the earliest before being able to get the download going. On the bright side, PS3 will get all of Battlefield 3's expansion packs a week before other platforms.

On PC, you'll need to install the Origin client if you haven't already -- it's where you'll download and launch the beta from. This beta is especially important for PC gamers who will now have the opportunity to see how well their computers hold up against the game and if they'll need to scramble to upgrade before it's released on October 25. If you encounter any issues, be sure to upgrade your drivers -- Nvidia and ATI have both released new ones optimized for BF3; Nvidia claims they may increase performance by up to 38 percent.

The beta runs from now through October 10. The Operation Metro map is playable in Rush mode, and it's rumored that the Caspian Border map may also open up for testers at some point.