You really think the guy at Best buy will send it back to ubi? They'll simply put the box back on shelf.
Similar thing happened to me with X3 when it first came out. I took it back as it was unplayable on my rig due to star-force and two days later saw the same box on the shelf. (It was a little bit damaged.) X3 also requires online activation for special content.
Perhaps things have changed though and they have a process to handle returns.. x3 was when the online activation had just started...