Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have been a fan of Civ games since Civ 1, so when they announced Civ V I pre-ordered it without hesitation. My bad. Much to my chagrin I don't actually own this software, despite the fact that I paid for it, and have a box and CD key to prove it. It's dependence upon Steam is definitely a deal-breaker for me. They have twice disabled my account without any reason or notification. When I emailed their tech-support they responded two days later informing me that the account was disabled due to suspicion of un-authorized use, and requested that I now "prove" that I own my software in order to use it. After providing them with the information they requested it appeared they had re-enabled my account as I was once again able to login.....only to have the same "Account Has Been Disabled" dialog to reappear. Since they refuse to tell me what is triggering this problem, the only thing I can guess is that I own too many of their products! Apparently I made the egregious error of ordering several other Civ products through the Steam service after I setup my account. And now they think someone is stealing their software, even though they've already taken my money!?!?!?!? Call me old-fashioned but when I pay $$$ for a product I don't do it with the understanding or acceptance that the developer or manufacturer can indiscriminately restrict my use of it. This is a bad idea in so many ways for consumers. Software piracy is their problem, not mine. I buy all of my software, and if they are going to penalize me for others potentially stealing their products, then I simply won't buy their products. Period. There are many ways to thwart software piracy that don't punish honest, paying customers. The explanation I received from Steam is that they were only trying to "protect me" from unauthorized use my account. Gimme a break! The only thing these bozos care about is eliminating piracy...at my expense. What's worse is that the only way you can get support from Steam is via email, and they are too slow to respond and apparently useless judging from my experience. From now on I am going to make sure any product I buy is not Steam dependent, and I will be warning all of my game-buying friends and clients about this flawed authentication scheme. Companies like Steam should be rewarded for their bad business models by customers refusing to buy products associated with their service. I think the Civ developers made a serious error linking their successful series to an unproved service like Steam. Very disappointed, because I really liked the game, but unfortunately it's unusable. And one more thought: I have never played Civ online. But now if my internet is down I can no longer play Civ, even in single player mode. Why exactly should a single player game be internet dependent?