Can't really blame Valve here. The fault lies with TrendyEnt for obviously accepting a big kick-back from Valve not to mention the promotion it will get with the TF2 crowd in exchange for a game breaking pre-order bonus. It's all so easy to blame Valve for having a monopoly but at the same time the customers, the media and the developers are practically giving it to them.

Then again, Steam is yet to perform any takeovers of other digital retailers, so I believe accusing them of attempting to monopolize the market is ridiculous.

Why do you think they need to takeover them? They do not need additional "servers". They only need to outrun them on first step to make others short breathing - that will cause extinction.

You really think Steam poses a threat to Gamersgate, for example? They don't ask for exclusivity of titles, they don't ask for price matching and won't keep you from selling the games on your own website cheaper. They're hardly trying to monopolize anything, and offering pre-order bonuses in their stores is the same Gamestop and Target do all the time, with the only difference their stores are physical.

Oh, and they're hardly the only ones who offer a pre-order bonus. Pretty much any game can be bough at about 33% off if you get them from GreenManGaming, for example. A cheaper price is still a bonus, of a different nature. And GMG isn't trying to monopolize the market either.

Wait... it's fine when other DD services have pre-order bonuses, but anti-competitive when Steam gets them? Valve allowing the DD team to use their assets in the Steam version is a competitive move. They aren't forcing exclusivity or engaging in anything other than healthy competition.

That all depends on how much arm twisting went on. If Steam is a legal monopoly (and I'm not saying it is) some shit that would normally be okay becomes very "not okay". If they're locking people out if they don't "take them up on such a sweet deal" they are effectively abusing their position every bit as much as MS being douches about not getting a XBLA release if you give any advantage (or even a release) to PSN.

Up until pre-orders started on Steam, each site (D2D, GamersGate, Impulse and Steam) were slated to get one pet each (the exact pets did actually used to be listed somewhere on Trendy Ents site so you might still find the information somewhere). But now, Steam isn't getting one pet. It's getting 3 of them and a weapon. Compared to what all the other sites are getting, it does appear a little underhanded to give that much more.

As for Impulse, with all fairness, they are now actively attempting to improve. They have started to remove regional restrictions, something that they always claimed they'd do under Brad but never did. Yet, now Brad's ousted and GameStop's people are in charge, we're seeing restrictions slowly being lifted.

The question now, is whether they will continue to improve or just give up somewhere along the line.

just wanted to pop in to say that the XBLA game has got the same release date as the PC version. also the reason because of that is microsoft in there contract because there developing for XBLA they have to release the XBLA version at the same time or before the PC version so they settled for releasing at the same time which is a shame cause the XBLA version as supposedly been completed for months...

And the PC version was completed around this time LAST year.

yea they been really bad at this but i still think m$ is at fault but then again the developers ahave apparently screwed up there iphone version to :/ i really want this but im really worried

I'll just play me some more Crimson Alliance and wait for the reviews, honestly Dungeon Defenders looks like it could be fun and it looks like it could seriously blow.