Hey, that's pretty cool of them. I didn't expect that.
The real problem with the NNK WEs wasn't even that PlayCanada bought a whole bunch of them and then marked them up—much like CoH2, the NNK WE was produced to order for the number of orders placed during a certain time frame, and they ordered within that timeframe. Buying something to sell at a marked up price later could be considered dickish, sure, but when copies are produced to order it's not really "unfair".
The problem was (...is) that Digital River has a horrendous order fulfillment system combined with gross incompetence. Need to change your address or payment method? They'd have to cancel and re-place your order to fix it. Most reps were unwilling to do this and told people all they could do was cancel. Some orders were canceled by complete mistake. The reps sent out a link to at least some of those who were affected—anyone who placed an order using that link got bumped ahead of people who ordered on day one.
Anyone. Even if they'd completely missed the preorder period months ago. That link got posted on CAG. There's even more to it, but I'll spare you and the rest of the thread.
tl;dr: please don't ever use Digital River for anything distribution