I hope so. I detest Steam. Nothing useful in exchange for endless compatibility and stability problems.

Right now, I seriously doubt they'll ever do a standalone release of this game.  There's absolutely zero upside for Stardock.  Steam just works.

Based on my own experience and reading posts here, the beta (including Steam distribution) has so far gone incredibly smoothly.  Nobody who is playing the game is complaining about Steam.  Not to dismiss the concerns of those (like EffBie) who hold a negative opinion of Steam for whatever reason, but right now stability and compatibility are just not issues.

Honestly, if the LH beta continues in this fashion, I would be stunned if Stardock didn't use Steam for all its releases going forward.

I had horrible problems with steam in the past (2006/2007) slowing down my computer and crashing, and I hadn't used it since then. I was upset and angry when I learned stardock planned on releasing LH via steam. I was completely anti-steam going into the beta. However, I gave steam a chance, and so far the experience has been pretty good. The first weekend I had it, I didn't have my steam credentials saved on my computer and I went out of town with no internet, so I couldn't play. Also on two other occasions steam has acted crazy, and prevented me from playing for a short while, but nothing like what I experienced before. I still have some reservations about steam's game ownership model (can an update go out that kills the game remotely? what happens in the highly unlikely scenario that value goes out of business?), but from a practical/does it work standpoint LH on steam is fine.

I love Steam, been using it since beta days shortly after HL 1 came out. Never had an issue, never had it crash, never had any problems with it messing up my games. I guess some people know how to use software and some people....don't. It is funny watching my mom use email once in awhile, she might have a hard time with steam.

Unfortunately, it's a trade off developers are willing to make.  Using Steamworks solves numerous issues for developers and publishers that would be costly or difficult to solve on their own. 

In the same sense that we will, unfortunately, lose some customers when future titles are 64-bit only, we are going to have to live with the fact that not everyone will be willing to use Steam.

I don't think anyone would accuse me of having tried really really really hard to make sure there was an alternative path.

I have never had an issue with Steam, nor with Impulse (which was once Stardock's baby). I *do* strongly dislike when one retailer sells a game which actually needs Steam, but this has nothing to do with Steam itself, as I have no actual issues with Steam. In fact, in the past couple years, I have been going out of my way to replace older, physical game copies I have with Steam DL copies.

However, the thing I like most about steam is summed up in this two-sentence bit from Frogboy:

Any time a developer can turn to an existing mechanism for distribution/dissemination of a product/updates/fun extras, that's time they don't spend working on their own systems for same, which is time and money they can spend on the content, rather than the logistics pipeline. Which generally means a higher quality (or, at least, cheaper) product for us, the end users.

I think it's incredibly savvy of Stardock to have their own accounts tied to Steam, too, in the event Steam is a problem. Not that Steam is perfect, but as someone who was on the Impulse bandwagon prior to the sale to Gamestop, my transition from that to Steam has been seamless. I don't blame Stardock for using it- it's very convenient, works well (I've only had 1 or 2 issues in the three years of using it), and like Brad said, it solves a ton of other issues. Not that DRM isn't without it's issues, but the implementation by Valve and their support (and that of developers) is amazing.

The big question for Steam (and sorta for Stardock) will be the impact the Microsoft Store may have on it over time. Windows 8 hasn't exactly been a firestorm of popularity, but if Windows 8.1 and future versions are good and adoption increases, alternate stores like Steam will have a harder time competing. I just don't want my games on Windows to become unplayable in the near future!

I love steam as much as anyone but I used steam when it first came out too and it crashed almost every time I used it back then.  It has come a long way but in the start it was as awful as anyone says it was

LH is STeam only, though the game can run without STeam (but doesn't launch without Steam)  My guess is a crack when the game is finished patching will take out Steam DRM entirely if you're worried about that.  Brad has been quoted as saying if something happened to Steam he'd make sure the folks with the game don't end up screwed.  (no idea what that exactly is)

I strongly suspect the Steamworks is largely for distribution and market purposes, DRM considerations aren't a factor in this (though I wish Stardock would prove this by a truly DRM-free version)

Then, if steam is the new source for Stardock games, are we going to get a steam key for our Stardock FE downloads?  To keep things neat, so to speak.

I have zero problems with Steam, and I like the fact that it auto-updates games for me.

Nevertheless, I dread the moment when the company will go out of business and my games will suddenly disappear. 

If Valve goes out of business, won't I just play those games in offline mode?  I mean if Valve just magically disappeared  Raptured or whisked away by aliens or some shit, I would just play my games in offline mode.  Until fairly recently, I didn't have wi-fi, so I played my games on my laptop in offline mode just fine.