You skipped few of the most played multiplayer games of 2008. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, 'top-selling game worldwide for 2007', 7 million units moved in a year. Then there was 2008 Call of Duty: World at War. I stopped following cod soon after (life), but looking further to 2011 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, again top seller, also shipped with dedicated servers support.

Turns out you can have AAA with dedicated servers as long as you arent planning to nickle and dime your userbase selling macrotransaction first day DLCs or pretend your limited instancing game is an MMO.