It looks like Sega is getting cozy with Steam. Both of their highly anticipated PC titles, Aliens vs Predator and Napoleon: Total War will ship with Steamworks support. What makes this interesting is that even for the retail copy, you are required to have online access to authenticate your game. There are some upsides and downsides to all this.[nextpage]

The upside
By requiring Steamworks, the game will have some new features supported, which will include achievements, matchmaking, leaderboards, and stats. Steam's online features are quite robust, and it allows developers to focus more on improving the online gameplay experience without having to rebuild the whole matchmaking, leaderboards aspect for each game.

In addition, you can install your game on any computer, provided that you use