New to PC Games

[nerp]

If you're not trying to pirate, you should have no problem with Steam. Be thankful Valve is behind it and not another game company. . .

 

[dfuze]

The worst thing about Steam I am aware of is the sales they have, if you're not careful you can go broke getting too many games

 

[thedosbox]

For arzg's benefit, there are a number of other digital distribution services that compete with steam:

Impulse
Direct2Drive
Gamersgate

A minor advantage of these is that once the game is downloaded and installed, you don't need to run their client to play the game.

With steam, you still need to startup the steam client and wait for it to figure out what mode it's in (i.e. online, offline, network not available). Some games also go on sale sooner on these services than they do on steam.

I've personally used steam, impulse and GoG and would happily do so again.

 

[LumbergTech]

For arzg's benefit, there are a number of other digital distribution services that compete with steam:

Impulse
Direct2Drive
Gamersgate

A minor advantage of these is that once the game is downloaded and installed, you don't need to run their client to play the game.

With steam, you still need to startup the steam client and wait for it to figure out what mode it's in (i.e. online, offline, network not available). Some games also go on sale sooner on these services than they do on steam.

I've personally used steam, impulse and GoG and would happily do so again.

I never shut steam off, so it only has to figure that out once a week when I reboot

 

[thedosbox]

I never shut steam off, so it only has to figure that out once a week when I reboot

That's great for you, but the OP indicated he didn't want to be online all the time.

I can tell you from experience that the steam client takes a LONG time to work out what's going on when the router is online, but the connection to the ISP is down.