I _hate_ Steam!

I hate Steam. No, make that "I _HATE_ Steam!" Dealing with Steam has never been easy for me. It seems that EVERY time I am required to interact with Steam, something goes awry.

Today I broke down and acquired Mafia II. Got home, opened it up and saw that authentication via Steam is required. [Queue the ominous music.] So I start the install process and instead of installing the game and then going to Steam, you are _first_ required to open a Steam account. Okay, I can deal with that. Create the account, copy the account info to MyDocuments, and receive the happy message that I am now the proud owner of a new Steam account. Then I continue with installing the game. Finally, it's all done and ready to go!

Or is it? I click the Mafia II shortcut and a message pops up reading, "binSteamService.exe" is missing. It's suggested that I run a Search to find it. I do so and discover that that file is still on the game disk and NOT on my hard drive. Fine, I'll just copy the file to the hard drive. Try again. Same message.

Now I know I'm out of my depth, so The Thing To Do is contact Support. I go there and review the FAQ to see if this situation comes up often. Apparently it doesn't. Okay, so that just means contacting Tech Support with a trouble report. Please login. I do so -- only to be informed, "There is no such account listed." Whadya mean 'no such account"? I just set up the account and have the confirmation and everything. To confirm that I go to the Steam homepage and login. Why doesn't Tech Support recognize me? And if I can't login at Tech Support, I can NOT ask my question to get a fixit! (Maybe that was their intent all along. "Quiet day here at Tech Support. Nobody pestering us with inane questions. Nice to know our games are so flawless, _nobody_ is having any problems. Guess it's safe to take a nap.")

Over the last couple years, I've had run-ins with a half-dozen games that require interaction with Steam. EVERY one of those did NOT go smoothly. I must be "special" or something; maybe I should change my name to "Ed"?

And then there's the hidden agenda of Steam itself: be the go-to site for games as digital downloading becomes all the rage. Get to the point that consumers simply cannot play the games they want without interacting with Steam on a daily basis. AND the Steam News reports. AND the Steam forums. AND the Steam Store. About the only "AND" missing seems to be Tech Support, which seems to think I don't exist, even though I am quite recognizable to all of the other Steam departments.

Like I said, I _HATE_ Steam. Had I known what grief just getting Mafia II started would be, I would have skipped it entirely.