So what criteria are you using to make this very bold claim. Also know, i don't really have an issue with Steam and mods, although I think we're goin too be DLC'd to death with Civ.

Yes mods were created using valve's engine pre-steam times. Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Natural Selection etc were all fantastic mods that boosted the popularity of Half-Life. Correct me if I'm wrong but ever since the implementation of Steam I have not seen any popular mods come out for their games like Half-Life 2. Team Fortress 2 you had to pay for, Portal you had to pay for, and every other mod that used to be free suddenly became pay to play games. Even the "Episodic" approach was just a way for them to pilfer money out of consumers by charging for "mods" for the game since they didn't add much to the game besides some new textures and content here and there.

Similar thing occurred with Total War games. When Rome TW came out there were a lot of mods for it, you never got bored of playing the damn thing because there was always another mod to try. Medieval 2 came out and same thing occurred. Then came Empire TW on Steam. After you got sick of the vanilla game that was pretty much it. Modding community had a few mods but the technical know-how to implement them in your game was as fun as trying to figure out how to "Jailbreak" an Iphone but at least with the Iphone you knew you would get more functionality so I never bothered to waste time with Empire. Later on I also found out the community made "Special Forces" units (you had to pay for) were not possible to mod into the game unless you hacked your copy of Empire TW. Suffice to say I haven't bothered with any modding with Empire not that there were many mods to choose from in the first place. Neither did I pay for any of their "Content" packs no matter how cheap they were. To me they signified their successful murder of the modding community for Total War series.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I have yet to see any Steam released game to have any popular mods that come close to the popularity enjoyed by mods made before Steam days.  Looking at games like SOSE and Elemental however I see a bustling modding community trying to completely reface the games with additional content because it is easy to mod and implement those mods by casual players like myself. Everyone keeps saying Steam is easy to mod, perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places but I have yet to figure out how to mod half my games in Steam if they have mods at all.

Your assuming causation where it does not exist.  You can mod half-life 2 as much as you want, you can mod any game which uses steam DRM assuming the developer of the game wants you to.   What you are seeing is developers have stopped worrying about supporting the modding community in recent years.  It makes no sense for them to support it after all, it has been proven that DLC sells, so why allow the community to extend your game for free when you can push out cheap updates every 2-3 months.   Yes mods extend the life of the game, but the developers and publishers don't care about that, they don't want to have to support a game for that long because the number of sales have dropped drastically after the initial few weeks. 

In any case I don't see the issue with steam, I buy all my PC games on it now (other then impulse only games), it is convenient and works.  I was actually disappointed when I couldn't buy SC2 on steam, in fact I generally won't buy PC games unless I can get them through steam.   It is faster, works more reliably and is cheaper then buying physical media, so I've migrated completely. 

Hmm, I don't like that kind of thinking.  Basically it is treating customers as receptacles of cash that must be emptied.  If Elemental really takes off I think Stardock will do quite well out of it.  I wonder if Civ IV would have had continual sales over such a long period if all mods were costed and you couldn't get any extensions apart from DLC?

Well, we'll soon know.  If Civ V goes the DLC route (which it already looks like it's doing) it will be interesting how long the game sells for.  Civ IV has continued to be sold for how many years?

Best regards,
Steven.

Well, at least as long as the free modding lasts (and as long as people can keep their Steam collection alive, ie. no mistakes or heavy-handedness by Steam).

I'm not going to be supporting Civ V at this time.  Exclusive distribution through Steam is just the last straw.

Best regards,
Steven.

You do need to always have the Steam client running.  2K Games have already said that all Civ 5 will have Steam DRM.  I prefer no additional programs that have to run just to get my games running.

Best regards,
Steven.

Also not true, in the case of Civ 5. It supports Steam's offline mode.

Just one of a number of reasons I dislike the steam approach enough to pass on this latest installment from my all time favorite game title...

steam has the ability to deny users access to their games.  Denial of game can occur through various software faults on the user and client side.  Denial of game can also occur from a policy directive.  In the EULA and terms of service agreements, there is nothing preventing steam from denying you access to your games.  In order to use steam (required to install and play GameX), users must agree to terms which allow steam to lock users out of their games for whatever undeclared reason they desire.  That's not cool, nor should it be legal.  But users must agree to those terms or they cannot use the product they purchased. 

There are a host of scenarios where steam could begin charging for its services.  And there are a number of reasons to be concerned about steam stopping support of GameX before you are done playing it.  Civ5's steam arrangement gives ownership of the software license to steam.  They can revoke this license at any time, for any reason.  I don't accept that.  When I buy a product, I want control over it's usage.  And after I've bought a product, I want assurance that it stays bought. 

I will not be buying Civ5.  Nor will I steal (pirate) it.  I take a firm stance on the protection of IP rights.  But I'd be more likely to steal Civ5 than to purchase it.   Upon install of a purchased copy, steam takes away the users ownership rights.  I'd have more confidence of ownership, by stealing the damn game than I would by buying it!  So Civ5 is dead to me.  It's all about Elemental now baby!!!

I bet anything the OP has pre-purchased Civ 5.

GoG.com just did this very same thing.  Anyone who doesn't happen to have their purchased game downloaded right now, at this moment cannot access their game at all.  This happened without warning.

Now, I don't care if this is just a stunt/joke, or if it's a legitimate going out of business notice.  The fact remains that your purchased games are being held hostage at this point in time.

If it can happen to GoG, it can happen to anybody.  So don't give me, this is just an "imaginary nightmare scenario" or, its never "actually happened" crap.

"Imaginary nightmare scenarios" ?!?  I've lost music due to Yahoo and MSN decisions.  They both dropped their music service, so I lost all the music when the PC they were registered on suffered a fatal crash.  I am once bitten twice shy on this issue.  Both Yahoo and Microsoft are big players with their own reputations to protect.  That changed nothing.  And no law suits has gotten my music back.  I spent a fair amount of money on something which turned out to have never been mine.  I paid the money, but they had ownership.  It was up to them if I could use the product or not.  Now the music is gone and there is nothing I can do about it.

Another reasonable scenario is that steam may find itself in need of recouping rising server and administrative costs.  They spend big money to provide the MP servers, chat service, mod hubs, patch distribution etc.  What is to say that rising energy costs don't tip the balance and cause them to enact membership fees.  And what is to say that net neutrality and increased network congestion issues won't bring about access fees.  And how about 6 years from now after Civ6 has been released... will steam decide that not enough people still play Civ5 to justify free access to their servers.  Will they charge a nominal membership fee to use the MP features of old games.  ++

Through no fault of my onw, I lost a couple hundred dollars worth of music because it was on a service similar to steam.  I have never lost a PC game CD (not even a single lost manual or box.. this was not a difficult task).  And of the many music CD's I have owned, none have been lost by by me.  And none have been damaged despite exposure to construction sites, hot truck cabs, and other unfavorable conditions.  I am willing and able to take care of my own stuff.  I have no need, nor motivation, to give ownership of my things to someone else.  I don't trust, nor want, other people to take care of my stuff for me.

1. You can run Steam in offline mode. I run Civ III Complete in offline mode with Steam. Just turn it on or off. No problem. My Civ 4 is a DVD boxed version.

2. Just looked at Steam client with Task Manager, and it is taking up 12K and the CPU reading at idle is 00.

3. I think there will be probably two DLCs at most before the first Expansion. Mods from Civfanatics or whatever can be loaded as usual.

4. After reading the Manual, the devil forced me to pre-order. Can't argue with him!

5. My main concern is that Civ V will turn out to be CivWars, with too much combat.

6. If Civ 5 blows completely, I have Civ III Complete and Civ 4 BTS with lots of goodies.

When you get right down to it, Civ III Complete is still one heck of a good game -- if you set the resolution to match your monitor. I'm running it at 1680 x 1050 and it looks great!