What's not to like about steam?
Ok:
1) Steam has had, and still has a memory leak issue which comes with one update, fixed with the next, back for the next one and so on
2) Steam is required for some games to run, or update. If you have issues installing or patching games without steam doing it for you then you're just pretty fail at using a computer
3) Steam doesn't make you a hardcore gamer, it's a mainstream gamer product.
That's a silly thing to try and say.
4) Steam is one more program running in the background, which while not an issue overall for any decent rig, is still lame to have to deal with.
5) Hyroshi, most games which "die" are because most mainstream gamers are FOTM jump-ship gamers. Off to the next shiny thing that catches their eye. I'll take the small tight knit community anyday. For the record there's still a community that plays - Quakelive, Planetside, UO, AC, etc etc. More players doesn't necessarily = better, and in fact usually means it's worse because the majority of those players are mainstream kids and halo-tard frat boys instead of die hard old gamers. Yup, I'm elitist and not very friendly. I miss the days of gamers being a small sub-culture instead of being infected by thousands of mainstream plebs.
6) Mainstreaming of games decreases their quality. Look at any MMO to show you what catering to large population of mainstreamers does to a game: It makes it shit.