Questions about Direct2Drive and Steam

First let me ask that we just avoid any of the philosophical debates
about Steam.

I was just wondering what practical reasons there may be *not* to
purchase games via Direct2Drive and/or Steam. A few specific questions
I have are:

1. Do the downloaded games run completely from the hard drive, or must
they be burned to disc to play them (for those that normally require
the disc to be in the drive, anyway)?

2. Would there be any limitations on installing downloaded games on
other computers in my house? Surely I wouldn't have to download them
on each individual PC, would I?

3. Can I expect to be able to freely re-download a game I previously
purchased via Direct2Drive (or Steam) in the event of, for example,
hard drive failure?

4. I understand that these are special versions of the retail games
and therefore require special versions of any subsequent patches. How
soon after the retail patches are released are the D2D/Steam versions
generally available?

5. Is there any sort of additional overhead involved when playing
games purchased from D2D or Steam, such as some sort of requirement
that the download service client be running in the background?

6. Anyone have any simple personal preferences that keep them from
purchasing games via dowload?

--
Rich Carpenter
.

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