I hope you realise that if steam becomes the one and only future of PC gaming then the PC basically becomes a more expensive console. The availablility, pricing and perhaps even hardware requirements will all be dictated by a single source.
Diversity is the thing that truly differentiates PC gaming and anything that causes a loss of that is bad for the industry and for us. Thats the pre-DRM reason that people hate EA so much, they gobbled up everything and then realised they didn't have the resources to exploit what they owned but instead of selling it off to people who might mak money out of it, they put it in a wooden box in a warehouse while telling us it was being looked at by "top men"
Whats that saying about absolute power?
I agree on GFWL though, from what I've read it sounds like a collossal failure. Good idea in concept and right in line with the community-centric approach they're taking to XBL but they fucked it up and they're going to have to pull something really special to recover the good will they lost

Valve is not like Microsoft. They care about their customers and I have no problem with Steam also I am using Steam since 2004. They are releasing free add ons and updates frequently, making cheap weekend deals, they are not like other companies. And I believe Valve and Steam (also GOG.com and CD Projekt) will be the savior of PC gaming. This is my point of view anyway. :)

I really want to play it, but i doubt my PC is up to it...
maybe later i'll see if there is a demo to see if it works.
In a year when retail PC game sales dropped 50%, steam = last best hope.

well that might be a while lol when the relase the exansion pack

I was in the beta due to Soulstorm being just to damn cheap on Steam to pass up. And after running it somewhat decent FPS ratio I decided to just wait for game of the year edition later on that will incorporate all the 2 billion stand alone expansions that they're doubtlessly going to release for it.

edit - To moderate my post slightly. I apologise Darthcobley, it wasn't intended personally.
What can Steam offer me? I have no credit card. I live in NZ and we don't have the greatest broadband around and we have low data caps. I don't play online. I often on-sell my games when I'm tired of them. I may be moving to Australia at some stage. I often play games before patching or patched to a certain level.
Basically to answer the above: I can't buy games from them. I can't download games from them. I won't be using their servers. I can't sell my games. I'll lose ALL my games and money spent if I decide to re-locate. I don't get to control how to play the games I've paid for. And will limited data caps EVERY game that I play would be using my internet. These are the reasons that Steam has no appeal to me.
And as I mentioned before if Steam thought this would be an idea that customer would LOVE why is the requirement for Steam not in the System Requirements. Even things like "Internet access required" are shown there. The Steam requirement was hidden in the middle of the small print. This is highly suspicous behavior when taken in the light of all the concerns expressed by the masses. Concerns that are very easy to predict.
Karl

Run it in offline mode.There is an option to do a game backup for every game on steam so you wont ever have to redownload anything. Just burn it or back it up on an external hard drive or a USB stick (thats how I do it).

Don't you have to log into the online service periodically to re-verify though?

I would imagine that no you don't. Once you logged in the first time you're pretty much free to just run it in offline the whole time from there on.
Or at least that's how it worked with each of the 46 games I bought from steam.
I suppose it might be different though seeing as GFWL is involved too.

nope.
Once its verified (1st time). You can select "offline mode" and you'll never have to have an internet connection ever again. (unless you uninstall it and want to re-download it).
Usually steam will check for updates and automatically update your games. But you can turn that off if you don't want it to.
Actually I rarely even "see" steam. For example, i'm playing World of Goo right now. I just click the "world of goo" icon in the start menu. there's a small steam popup for a few seconds (less obtrusive than the gog launcher) and then the game starts. When I quit the game I just right click the steam taskbar icon and chose exit.
Its kind of easy to forget its even on steam...

People have this strange misconception that moving country means steam games won't work for you anymore.
I moved from England to Finland and the only steam problem I had was having to confirm that I was the one using my issued in england credit card and not some thief. all my previous purchases work fine.
As for the game, there were a few problems at launch which were a bit absurd, but patched away now atleast, and it's very fun.
Finally, for the people that cry about steam. You don't like it, we get it, you don't have to say 'I'm not getting it because it requires steam' in every thread. Really, we get it.
I mean it.
Honestly!

please

I don't actually have anything against Steam. Well actually I have one thing against it. And that is needing a Steam account for a Store-Bought game. If I wanting to get games from Steam then I'd do so after accepting the restrictions/perks of Steam. If I buy a game in store I expect to be able to play without creating an account with an Online Games Distributor as I didn't buy it online. That's it.
So that means that I will not be buying Dawn of War 2, Fear 2 or Empire Total War. Or anything other games that sneaks in the "Needs Steam Account" when they are sold fully-packaged in a retail store.
Karl

for crying out loud!