Took me two hours to be able to play this because of the stupid GFWL client. And if I were in another country, I would probably not be able to play at all.

First I downloaded it via Steam. Then it didn't start with an error code. Looked it up and fixed that error thanks to an internet guide.
Started it, and GFWL wants a 25 digit key. Wait, isn't that game FREE TO PLAY? It wants a key? Are you stupid? Why the $insult do you need a key, you §insult game?
Anyway, looked for a solution.
Have to sign into my GFWL account via internet. Does not work on Firefox! First it wants JavaScript, then it just doesn't work at all.
So I somehow manage to log in via Internet Explorer after resetting my password. Guess what? No key anywhere! Wasted my time on absolutely nothing!

Finally, somewhere on the internet I find I have to log into GFWL via the client in the programs subfolder. So far, so good. But it gets no connection. Why? It is beyond me. I look at my COMODO if it blocks access, but no.

After like 10 or 15 minutes of this shit finally it works. For no reason. Probably the server was overloaded and Microsoft is too dumb to add a warning. So finally I get to add the game on the GFWL Marketplace.
Or so I think. Now it wants personal data, including a phone number. People, I was harassed by phone by some capitalist $insult §insult who want to sell me lottery stuff. I have a secret number now. Still some people sometimes manage to call me. Including a pedophile bitch who wants to talk to my children about some sweets for a "marketing survey". I don't even have children. Well, I told her it is none of her business and secretly wished she gets - you know - as much as she wants to - you know - children. Which is fine since she is really a marketing bitch she won't get. Heck, I even almost died from that phone shit because - frankly - each time I get a shock from that, it made me kind of a psychical wreck. A bit more and I would have hunted some of those guys and burnt their houses down so they just leave me alone. Before it got so far, however, I changed my number and now tell the police when someone calls me without permission. Hope they deal with them.
Anyway, so Microsoft wants my phone number. And it does not accept "none". So I make up some data. Since it is non-obvious what next to do, I spend 15 more minutes finding the key.

Then I start the game on Steam again and it works now. Without entering the key. Seems it was automatically applied.

Thanks for wasting 2 hours of my time, Microsoft, and having me have had bad memories again.

You want people to play your free to play? Then let them and add it to GFWL accounts autmatically when accessed from within the game. Do not let them have look for what stuff went wrong, and don't make guessing games out of why your client does not work!

And I thought I had it bad when I fought with DOOM II for 3 days trying to get it to run back in the day.

Wow.

Have some beer and relax, brother.

Well, good thing you didn't manage to play the game, otherwise you would be even more disappointed. Microsoft have really taken a good series and driven it straight into the ground. I doubt they would call you asking to speak with your kids but they would gladly sell your account information to Facebook who would then put it up on Wikileaks.

Edit: Oh, and the free-to-play is really just a gimmick. It's actually a demo disguised as a complete game. Get ready to throw away €60 if you want to play it for real.

Age of Empires died after the second game and before the mythology thing.

I say that cause some decent user created and later released content was produced for AoE2

Thank you for making me laugh so hard at your thread title that I fell out of my seat; you pretty much made my day. :)

You think that's bad? Try running Scrapland on Windows 7 -_-

GFWL works great for things that have minimal integration and/or can be played with an offline profile, like Fallout 3. It works HORRIBLY for things that are fully integrated and online. It just has too many possible errors and glitches. It also doesn't interact well with other clients. There's a reason Retribution was released as Steam only instead of Steam+GFWL like the previous Dawn of War 2 titles. And I don't even like Steam.

Actually it's pretty free if you only want to play the computer, if you want to play vs. opponents, yeah, you'll need some upgrades or you will get smashed.

Hahahahhahahaha! :D

I don't know if your problem was specifically because you were getting it through Steam; I've played the Marketplace version and only had the key problem which went away after minimal prodding.

Windows 8 introduces Xbox Live for Windows, a complete reworking that makes the whole experience seamless and user-friendly like on the Xbox 360 and Windows Phone. It only works for the new Metro games at the moment but I'm hoping they'll add support for desktop games as well since it's such an improvement over Games for Windows Live.

So why don't these companies just cut to the chase and ship all these games with an armed guard.

Luckily it's only 14€ on Steam, but indeed it is just a disguised demo.
No, the problem was because I had some things disabled in the services.msc that needed to be enabled. At least the first part of it.

I said "Age of Derpires" out loud after reading that. (Just sayin'...)

Or the new RealLifeGuard DRM, where two guys follow you around, have the game in a special suitcase, they install it on your PC so you can play, and uninstall it afterwards via formatting all your hard disks. And if you don't like the game or complain... you don't want to know what happens then...