Well there's the fact that the boxed version of Steam games still make you install Steam, which totally kills my primary motivation in getting boxed copies. Up until recently, my internet was pathetically slow, so installing off a disc was always much, much, much faster than the 5+ hours it would take to download a game. Plus there's the fact that the boxes don't say they require Steam installed (at least they didn't when I bought the box of Portal).

Another thing (and I know it's small, but still) is that Steam doesn't actually close when I close it, it's still running in the background. If I clicked the little "X" in the corner I want the program to end, not just minimize. That's what the minimize button is for.

Steam can easily balloon up to 50mb of ram usage (and I"ve had it go as high as 100mb...we're not talking in-game, either).

For me, the most obnoxious thing is that there's absolutely no way to set the damn thing to close upon a game closing. Whether it's a resource hog or not is irrelevant; I simply do not want it running in the background. Due legalities, I may not "own" the game, but I damn well own my PC and I'm going to have it run the way I want to. It's amazing how, on other forums, people praise Steam to no end but COMPLETELY whine if another process has to be run. There were dozens of people angry on one forum over GTA4 requiring the Rockstar Games Social Club to be running. They didn't want an "unnecessary" component left running on their computer- I feel the same about Steam.

I also often hear "Why do I need GFWL when I bought the game from Steam?" too. With that logic, why do I need to run Steam? I'm not a fan of GFWL, but at least that closes with the game.

That's my single biggest issue with it- it's designed in a way to be a core component of your PC. Once you have a Steam-game, they want you running that damn app 24/7.

I also think it's silly that they can't manage to track achievements when offline.

I don't hate Steam. For me, Steam just doesn't add much value so I am not willing to pay more to use it (aka full price). If Civ V shows up for 20 bucks, I'll probably get it, at fiftty or higher, not a chance.

If it's your first Steam game and don't have an account (as it was for me with Portal) You have to download Steam and create your account, etc, which with a bad internet connection takes forever. And for games like Supreme Commander 2, where there are Day 0 patches that are over 1 GB, it is just painful.

The point I was trying to make is that on most programs, you click the little red X in the upper right corner, and the program ends. I close MS Word, and there isn't any system tray application of Word still running. Steam doesn't do that, which really bugs me (like I said, it's a small thing, but I find it annoying). I don't really care that other programs do it too, it bugs me when they do it. Steam just has the added bonus that it does other things I don't like too.

It's still an inconvience that I don't want to have to deal with. And on my old internet connection, I would average about 15-30 kb/s (I know, that's pathetic, but it's true). And if you don't have internet for whatever reason when you're installing your game, you're screwed.

Except some of those applications actually have legitimate reasons for continuing to run. If your antivirus isn't running, it's not doing it's job, which is a problem. MSN and Skype need to be running to recieve messages/calls. If Steam isn't running... nothing happens. As far as I'm concerned, there is not good reason for Steam to continue running when I'm done using it. Some people might want it open for community features or whatever, but I don't. They could at least give me the option, like Impulse lets me disable Impulse Now.

^^ they do complain about that lol.  Finding the absolute tiniest flaws they have with Steam so they can jump on the bandwagon of Steam haters.  I think that's the new hip thing to do.. god damn hipsters.

I don't hate them anymore (not sure I ever did).  I just ignore them now.

Its good to see that the offline mode works now.  I'm still not inclined to buy games there however.  Also its still a pain to try to get custom maps for a lot of games to work since it installs games in the Steam folder instead of the same folder a store bought copy would.

If it was proven that having an active steam acount got you interest from very attractive (and dirty but not physco) females (or whatever you prefer)... would you dance with your devil?

Whats your Steam hate worth?

I don't mind the way the program operates, I do mind that it's simply slow.  I recently upgradded my internet connection, and despite the rest of the internet loading at incredibly speeds, Steam still takes far too long to check for updates, log into my account, load the start-up spam and get the hell out of my way so I get to my game. 
Impulse takes, quite literally, all of about 3 seconds.  Valve need to lift their game in that regard, otherwise Steam as a program isn't that annoying.  I don't like Steamworks, however that's a different issue entirely.

Steam isn't slow on my computer...

I haven't noticed Steam taking a long time to update, although I have it set to auto do those things. I don't have it set to auto start. Ever since that update to the "new" Steam... it takes a bit to startup.