I would recommend ONLY using it for games that use Steamworks DRM (Valve games, Just Cause 2, Red Faction Armageddon, stuff like that) because the Cloud Saving and Achievements are at least something in return for putting up with the client headaches. Anything else just piles it's regular DRM on top of the Steam verification, which can be a right pain in the ass.

dont know how offline mode works now after the new updates but last year, i lost my net connection for two months and was able to play all of my single player games, even cs source and cs cz worked offline with bot play.

That's only if it has another form of DRM

Eh, Steam's great. Extremely convenient. I actually like the features that the client offers, as well as the client itself.

Even if it doesn't I still wouldn't recommend older games on Steam like Beyond Good and Evil or Commandos. I had incurable issues running both games, while my GOG versions run perfectly (using Windows 7). But yeah, if you are going to get something like, say, Bioshock or Bionic Commando Rearmed via Steam, you are pretty much good to go.

Here's an up-to-date list of all third-party DRMs of Steam games:
http://steamdrm.flibitijibibo.com/the-big-drm-list/

Definitely, you can't always disregard it and look for alternatives elsewhere as sometimes there are no alternatives to speak of. And as the number of exclusive titles grows, at an alarming rate from where i stand, so do the problems for those who don't want to deal with subscription models and DRM'ed clients with attached storefronts.

Perks are perks if and when they're optional, when they're mandatory they become an imposition like any other.

dear god! is it really true .... a reasonable fan of Steam?!?!? how the hell do you manage it dude?

(not that I can say there are all that many reasonable Steam haters, god knows I'm not.)

Steam is awesome, despite the malcontent complaints of many...

HOWEVER, I have heard hundreds of seemingly legitimate complaints about issues related to games, license issues, languages, version control, bla bla bla for users outside of the United States and Canada.

Particularly, Germany, Japan, Australia, and others. And I am not an expert at all, but a lot of these issues seems to be related to local compliance with laws... but what I'm saying is, talk to local users and see if there are issues related to your country.

getting good Digital Download service outside of North America is like getting good F2P support outside of south Korea.

I saw your post pre-edit! What are you doing here if you only play stuff you can buy on Steam? :P

And yet it doesn't happen to most people. Just try it, it's amazing for discounts - you'll get a great ammount of game time for little money if you watch their deals.

Haha! I accidentally posted before I had completed my sentence, and then was going to clarify that I meant new releases but then got bored of the whole thought.

Personally I can not understand that anyone would willingly accept the horrid conditions of the steam eulas, they make EA's eulas look good, and that is rather hard to do.

Second, that steam client is one of the worst pices of code ever made, worse than starforce and 3 limit activation securom. steam is buggy, crappy DLspeeds, offline mode do not work, it spews adds (if you do not go into the options to disable them) got a in-game add possibility, grabs way more system resources than it should, (granted I am a bit OCD when it comes to system resource use regards to when gaming) and steam/valve got rabid fan horde that rivals those of apple.

(ouch, this will get me much negative rep from the steam worshippers)

Answering the question with no drama:

I like the client, it works well. There are a couple annoyances, the main one being you cannot roll-back a patch if it breaks your game. That's a big one for me and has caused to "pirate" one game I bought already just to get it working again.

I buy everything I can in a box and I buy indie games from their websites but if a game is only on Steam, or attached to Steam from the box, I still get it. I am not opposed to using the program, I am just not a super fan of it either. I do dislike the DRM aspects of it and how it turns a boxed product into a digital service, but in the end the community makes sure these games will play if Steam ever shuts down someday. I don't really worry about DRM on an open platform like the PC.

In short: it is too powerful and DRM is anti-customer, but in the end it's no big deal. If I were to go all-digital and stop buying boxes I would probably buy everything I could there for convenience's sake.