JDR- I was pissed about the STEAM thing too, but Ive since softened on the issue due to a few factors:
- The availability of games is staggering. They have way too many games for anyone's good. For instnce, I wanted to try Painkiller, they have it in several versions pretty cheap. I could install it here and play it, I could even install it on my work pc and play it there too at lunch. The availability and accessibility of games far outweighs the inconvenience of having to run their service.
And the service, is it truly that bad? I'm a big privacy/stay outta my pc/let me play offline/ advocate too, but I have to say that steam is not that bad. It has a small footprint on the resources that doesnt really matter, it keeps games updated, and you can if you want play in an "offline mode" tho the service will still be running.
I hated steam too, but after you test the waters a bit youll find that perhaps our "old world gaming" mentality's reaction is a little overblown in light of the benefits and quite frankly harmlessness of the service.
As far as L4D goes - just %3$@ play it already, trust me. If anything, youll get a kick out of it for a day, in this day and age if you dont have at least 4g to throw around you need to buy a bigger drive!