» Mon May 14, 2012 1:01 am
From past "steam powered" game DVD purchase experience, really the only thing the DVD is going to provide is a local pre-cache of the game (if you will) so that it can copy those files over to your Steam folder, then perform any updates/decryption/etc. via Steam. id has already mentioned though, that ONCE you have activated via a steam account, you will NEVER have to go online again.. you just have to plugin and 'activate', then you can go in offline mode and never go back. (sorry I don't have this link, but if anyone else might please feel free to help a brotha out).
Hope this answers your question.