Well, I am not very fond of Steam, as it requires me to be on-line to play my games. Don't tell me about off-line mode, it works all right for three weeks, but then Steam must phone home to see if there is an upgrade, contrary to what was claimed (I was told that I had to go on-line only once to register, then never again; this is not true). This has been very frustrating at times when my internet connection was down or I was at a computer with no internet access. Okay, this is not as bad as Ubisoft, but it comes close, Ubisoft is at least honest about internet requirements, so I can avoid buying their games.
An example: I bought Napoleon Total War in a box, went home and installed it, went on-line and activated and then played the game. After two weeks the game was exhausted for me, I had won as all factions, so I left the game and played something else (DF). A few weeks later I thought I would give NTW another try, but when I tried to launch the game, Steam refused to open before I went on-line. At that time my son had borrowed my mobile internet connection, so I could not play the game I had payed for.
This is a pity as I am very well aware that if my internet is working all right, then I have access to a lot of nice features for multi play on Steam. But I don't need those features, I am an old-fashioned gamer with a LAN, who prefers to play with people I know, sitting in the same room, subject to psychological warfare (well, not actually, I play almost only collaborative multi player games like aiwar).
But let us just ignore Steam, as it is not required to play aiwar, DH or HoI. When the corporate gaming industry sucks, indie games is the way to go.
