It was released to the radio and the band's MySpace page on Auginstead of the planned date, Augdue to a leak by their hometown radio station, WBSX. "I Will Not Bow" was released for sale on August 31 as the album's first single. On February 16, 2010, " Give Me a Sign", " Until the End" and " Sooner or Later" were released as downloadable content for Guitar Hero 5. On September 29, 2009, "I Will Not Bow" was released as a downloadable track for the video games Rock Band and Rock Band 2. The version on the DVD is of the band only and does not contain any footage from the feature-film Surrogates, unlike the main version released online. Limited edition copies of Dear Agony purchased at Best Buy also included a bonus DVD that features the band's six music videos, including a previously unreleased version of the video for " I Will Not Bow". The game also features the debut of the songs, "Fade Away" and "Crawl". The game contains three levels and plays the same as the original, except the player controls vocalist Benjamin Burnley and the three bosses are each other member of the band respectively. On September 23, 2009, Breaking Benjamin released an online browser game constructed from Adobe Flash which is a parody of Altered Beast, aptly titled "Altered Benjamin".
" Lights Out" was used to promote the video game, Halo: Reach. As of February 16, 2010, Dear Agony has been certified Gold by the RIAA and sold over 700,000 copies.
It also topped the iTunes download charts in the first week of its release. After the album's release it entered the Billboard 200 Chart at #4 selling roughly 134,000 copies in its first week, slightly more than Phobia. Burnley has cited Dear Agony as the first album he has written sober. The cover of the album is an MRI scan of frontman Benjamin Burnley's head. The recording process began in September, leading to its release one year later.