This specific phrase can appear when the game fails to write or modify the file. It is often a permissions issue . Try launching Steam as an administrator. If that fails, the file may be locked by another process. Restarting your PC usually resolves this. Another user reported that a lingering game process ( t6mpv43.exe ) kept the file open; they used the Command Prompt with tasklist and taskkill /PID ## to terminate the process, which fixed the "cannot create" error.
: Add the Black Ops II installation folder as an exclusion in your antivirus settings to prevent future deletion. black ops 2 cannot create steam-api.dll