For those of you old enough to recall Half-Life 2's original release, you'll remember how Steam -- Valve's downloadable content system -- absolutely ruined the entire thing for many thousands of people for almost a month after the official release date. Issues ranging from broken downloads to paranoid speculation on Valve's plans to sell personal information to the Nazis, Illuminati, space aliens, Francis Ford Coppola, etc. had many people predicting a quick death for the service. Of course, it didn't die, and has flourished into the sort of cash cow a father in India might offer up as his daughter's dowry.

Sadly, it looks like some kinks still exist, and they've all popped up simultaneously thanks to the release of Call of Duty 4. If you take a look at Valve's Steam forums, you see nothing but threads complaining about Steam and people's inability to actually play the thing. As is the usual Internet protocol, people have grown quite irate with Valve's inability to fix the issue within minutes of their complaint, and have taken to measures ranging from further whining to petty threats to (bizarre) conspiracy theories involving the Medal of Honor development team and hostage situations.

Any of you having issues with the system? We can't help you, but feel free to bitch about the situation in the comments.

[Jeremy, we're sending you a hat, but we'll need it back by Monday]