User blog comment:Tansquare/Steam/@comment-4674838-20120317174344

In my opinion, Steam is an excellent product. I've used it for quite some time, and Terraria is just one of many games I have on Steam. I love how Steam allows you to uninstall a game, and then re-download it at any time for free. Many of the games that Steam supports are priced extremely cheaply--way lower than going to a retail store and buying, say, the latest Xbox 360 title for $60. Also, you can "gift" games to your friends, or receive games as gifts. This was how I first got into Steam, because one of my friends was a longtime Steam user and he gifted me a few games to get things started.

Steam could still use some improvement as a social platform. Profiles could be more pretty looking. Pulling up Steam chat in-game can bug things out with some games, depending on the hotkey setup. Also, Steam's voice chat, in my experience, is unreliable, so I do Skype calls in-game instead. Other than minor complaints like those, I have had very few issues with Steam. Another feature that I like is that you can add non-Steam games to your library, giving you shortcuts to launch the game through Steam and gaining access to your Steam friends who may be online at the time. I launch Starcraft II through Steam all the time =)

I would say a key element in how much people enjoy Steam is whether or not they have/make some friends on Steam who they chat or play with regularly. People who just enjoy single-player games and aren't out for any kind of social experience won't get as much out of Steam. On the other hand, people who have Steam friends both in real life and over the internet will get much more out of the product. Another key element to enjoying Steam is investing in it as a game library, rather than using it as an access point for 1 or 2 games--and the wide availability of games and the cheap pricing makes Steam as a game library a potentially excellent investment.

Random fact: Valve Corporation, who makes Steam, is based not too far away from where I live.