My son gave me money to "buy" him a game from steam. The day after I bought the game my internet bill, and a car repair surfaced. Well I had enough money to fix my car and not pay the internet bill.
Well I went a week without internet and in that time I learned that even in "steam's offline mode" I could not play any of the games I thought I "bought" from them.
"offline mode" worked well for Desura. but not for steam. I have decided sense then, I will NO longer purchase anything from STEAM.!
Even their discounts are not really worth it. If my modem ever dies, and I need to wait for a replacement, the steam games Would be useless.THAT MEANS that I gave them money for nothing!!!!

You have to be online to activate offline mode...

Maybe ask a neighbor to use the internet for 2 seconds. Just login, activate offline and you're good to go. :)

It is true, Steam's offline mode seriously sucks. It is useless.

Don't use Steam my friend, it's shit. Either buy from GoG, or from the site of the producer/publisher. Steam's only purpose is to spy on you.

Offline mode works for some and refuses to work for others. By no means would I give it my recommendation, but it has been working well for some time now. Note, however, that you must have password and user account saved and should not turn off steam without going into offline mode first. If you do that, there is a 95% chance that you will need internet access when you log back in, since it's basically "stuck" in online mode by that time.

How I wish this thing would get fixed once and for all.

Yea! I have decided I will not get anything NEW from THEM!

DOES THIS MEAN GABE SAW ME MASTURBATE?!

Everybody saw you do that, you really should turn off your livestream if you're going to do that.

Yes, and it traumatized him. Thanks for that.

http://gotgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Gabe-Newell-Valve.jpg

Always remember. Stare in the camera, do it slowly and whisper: "I'm doing this for you, Gabe".

Every time a Steam user masturbates, Gabe delays Half Life 3 by another year.

it's not, well for me anyway, I play Dragon Age Origins, Morrowind, and Rainbow Six 3 offline all the time while I am not connected to the internet at all

There used to be a .cfg workaround you could create to fix this stupid issue, but Valve apparently patched it out because, try as I might, it no longer works. And without that, Steam is, IMO, just as awful as the BS you put up with from the likes of Ubisoft or Blizzard w/ D3. Don't tell that to the fanboys, though, they will bite your head off.

EDIT: Also, @ OP, keep in mind that many new PC games require Steam activation to play, even if you buy a physical copy (they use it as the DRM). Fallout: New Vegas, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, RAGE, Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, Saints Row: The Third, the list goes on and on. Check here, if a game uses Steamworks, it likely requires a Steam activation for the physical copy (there are exceptions, such as Torchlight, which does not have DRM on the physical copy, but uses Steamworks features if bought from Steam).

You only need to "go offline" once, then offline mode works forever. Well, at least 6 months, which is what I am up to at the moment.

Also I don't thing digital distribution stores plan for their customers to buy a game and then immediately have their internet shut off. That seems like something pretty niche.

Anyway, I agree DRM free is the best option for consumers.