Valve have revealed their Left 4 Dead 2 pricing scheme on Steam and for everyone that's not American, it's probably reason to cry a bit on the inside.

Many times now Valve officials have preached that indeed, the publisher is responsible for all regional pricing and the Steam team can't do anything on its own. And in a surprising move, Valve themselves appear unwilling to bother themselves with fair pricing of their products in Europe. Even with an added sales tax, buying the game in the EU Tier 1 (which consists of France, Germany, the Netherlands and some Nordic countries), L4D2 is at least 20% more expensive than in Valve's home country, the USA.
Confusingly the UK pricing is spot on, appearing roughly equal to the $. Same game with the lower EU Tiers. As it appears then Valve are knowingly milking only a few European countries, simply because they can.

Personally, I am more appalled that Valve has the audacity to price L4D2 so far above $30. After all, I think they have to make amends for botching up L4D. And I don't mean the whole post release support. I mean the game in general. Bugs, balancing, variety, replay value. To me, it was Valve's weakest game to date. And yes, I remember Ricochet.

And to see them jump on the pre-order exclusives bandwagon is disconcerting to say the least. Sure, it must bug them to see retail sales of their own games eclipse those on their native digital platform, but they're only going to change that by undercutting retail sales, not by including a baseball bat.