Oh, Metroid thread, riiight:
It should be online....its been three months since E3, their engine is pretty much ready to go. They are either working on a)fleshing out the single player as far as they can, b)utilizing Nintendo WiFi Connection infrastructure or c)inventing myriad Metroid-themed minigames. The game will not be going gold until next month at the earliest as well....so four months since the healthy demo they showed at E3 (and ComicCon, where I played it.)
If expanding a game's multiplayer aspect to go online is as relatively simple as was commented...at least 4 months...I really hope so.