As others have said, your credit card is charged when the game ships. So you can pre-order the game now, then have three weeks to decide if you want to keep your order or not. (As a side note, I would make sure to make up your mind the Friday before it ships - NewEgg won't cancel a pre-order on the Monday beforehand, if memory serves.)
Anyway, I have no idea what to make of this game. I get the gist of it: its the Capcom Japanese all-star team's version of an open-world game. But does it have side quests? Dialog options? Branching story threads? Or is the "open world" just used as a catch-all description and the player just goes around combating stuff with the flimsiest of stories at its shell?