V6ix: I cant run the game because the steam_api is flagged and banned, and without it game is not running......is there a game website that sells legit games without dependable steam crap files that has nothing to do with the game itself ?
A
*legit* steam_api.dll file cannot be flagged and banned by the antivirus, it's included in literally thousands of games around
It may have been flagged because, at some point, there was a non legit copy of it around on your HDD; many cracked games rely on an altered steam_api.dll copy to bypass protection, and AV are known to flag those, from time to time... I'm not implying anything, but maybe you have/had in the past some other copy of it around?! maybe your AV is being overzealous with this copy too?!
Whatever teh case is, the one included in the GOG package is clean, so your issue lies elsewhere
Again, there's nothing inherently wrong in having the game linked to a DLL by Valve... it does not require the actual Steam client installed, it does not trigger any online check of any sort, it doesn't install any hidden component or hook in your system, and it's not enforcing any DRM by just standing there; it's just a bunch of functions that the developers deemed useful to link to they code, just like any other Microsoft VC++ runtime dll, or opengl, directX, whatever.
Sure, it may be "cleaner" to recompile a different version of the EXE for different stores, getting rid of it altogether, if feasible, but if it's just there doing nothing, and GOG has deemed it OK with their no-DRM policy, I don't see what the big deal is