Benjamin Franklin once said there's 3 certain things in life: death, taxes, and Steam debates. They pop up at the oddest times. When his kite was struck by lightning, some random dude mentioned to Ben that 's just like steam - it's shockingly dangerous. Some other random dude said thats a bunch of British East India Company bologna and Steam kisses babies and solves world hunger. I don't know what to believe anymore. The answer is 42.

I don't see the beta download available in my account. I got the email saying I could try the beta and logged directly into my stardock account, no beta. I tried installing the stardock manager, still no beta. Not sure why I can't seem to see it.

I can't find this game on Steam?

How do I buy it via Steam?

it's up on steam now - purchased!

Just played my first half hour of the beta, very good so far - no crashes, only one minor bug in which the view didn't move to units selected in the sidebar (fixed itself, couldn't replicate).

Preview of movement paths is very welcome, I missed that in the changelog, but it's very handy.

Tactical battles much more fun - particularly when Bannon Heighsley and his Command ability joined my party. Along with Relias' Rush & Haste, everyone was all over the place. Swarm is a welcome addition too, as is shield bash - little additions that suddenly made the tactical battles much more tactical. Monster parties are pretty menacing but quite sensibly placed so far - at least there's a river between my likely first expansion site and All The Spiders. Starting with some basic units and the population cost for pioneers both seem positive changes to early game pacing.

But please, make it so that Auto Turn is off by default - I forgot that it existed and lost my first turn's research because I excitedly moved my sovereign first (what can I say, I'm out of practice). Kind of punishing to new players.

And the first enemies I fought were a banished ogre and his pet pig. Bless.

Steam 

Yes, there are circumstances where publishers can force updates (at least there was about a year ago when this was explained to me at length) despite you choosing to not update it.  That's normally only done in extreme circumstances, such as to fix game-breaking bugs that are filling up the in-boxes of their tech support or updates to external DRM that would stop an old install from running.  Otherwise, most don't choose that option.

However, there is a way to enforce that a game will never be patched that is built into Steam, regardless of publisher wishes.  It's called "offline mode."  Once a game is downloaded and you have fired it up at least once, you can choose to change your Steam client to offline mode.  At that point, you can still play the game to your heart's content but you won't have any features that rely upon Steamworks (for example, that would include multi-player for some games).

Hopefully that helps those that are on the fence to determine if they should spend the money to pick up this awesome game and "brave the perils" of Steam or wait possibly until the end of time to see if it becomes available elsewhere. 

As for the EULA, that's an entirely different matter.  When you use Steam, you purchase a license and not a game.  They're very clear about that.  Licenses can be revoked, so don't jerk around with Valve (at least while using your Steam credentials) if you intend to keep on enjoying the licenses you have.  This approach is not specific to Valve, it's just that they're the most popular venue where it is used.  Pretty much every digital download service does things the same way, these days.  Some are nicer (Stardock), some are meaner (EA), and some are stupider (MS Live - will they ever have a secure system?).  However, that's the trend that the industry is flowing in.  If you want to make a stand against it, more power to you.  Your efforts will get crushed as most people will simply walk on past to get to whatever shiny object is in the proverbial window, but standing on principle can be its own reward.  Whether that reward is worth missing out on a great game or not is something a person can only decide for themselves.

of note - IANA Stardock employee nor a Valve employee, just a gamer with a ridiculous backlog of awesomeness.

I only know how to get it if you purchased it from Stardock (that's how I got it).  Assuming you did so in time to get in the beta, you should have received an email associated with that account that let you know the beta was available.  That should have arrived within the last 24 hours or so.  There will be a link that will guide you to the login site on stardock.com.  From there, you can go to your downloads section and you should see a link to get the beta next to a listing for Legendary Heroes.  That will then provide you with a key (a series of letters and/or numbers like XXXX-XXXX-XXXXX or something along those lines).  Note: the rest is a step by step in case you aren't familiar with adding a retail game to Steam - Click the button to save it to your clipboard (the same as <ctrl+c>) and open up Steam.  Go up to your games menu, and choose to add a game (do NOT choose "add a non-steam game").  Read the EULA, accept it (assuming you do), and then hit <ctrl+v> to past the key where it's asking for it.  Submit, and it should then confirm that it's being added to your account.  Once that's complete, go to your library tab in Steam and double-click to download.  Once it's downloaded, open up the game and allow Steam to verify and finish it off, register the game with Stardock, and play.

until steam itself auto-updates and automatically turns auto update back on.

It's invasive software. Plain and simple. Can't say 'yes' to that EULA.

The Steam part is really bad news. Steam has got to be one of the worst services made. It is down hours every day, has terrible customer service and is run by someone who hates competition and wants to rule the digital distribution world while not making Steam stable or friendly. I have been through many nightmares with Steam and their service, the best example being Borderlands. Selling you an unplayable game because of DRM and then refusing to give a refund or anything, just saying too bad, we just screwed you over. I will have nothing to do with Steam again.

I can't activate the beta.  I just purchased and downloaded lengendary heroes on steam.

I get an error once I hit the register button on the stardock account registration pop-op.  The error pop-up just says error activating the product.

Notepad then pops up with this information : 

Application start: 2013-3-22 23.20.31

Silent mode

Mode 2

Submitting activation request...

Download: failed HttpSendRequest

Result parsing error (1)

Error activating the product

Please ensure the serial number entered is associated with the email you used and attempt to activate again. Include this log file if contacting support.

Using silent activation with null serial mode.

I already have a Stardock account since i had to register to activate Fallen Enchantress.  I was never asked for a serial though, so i'm not sure if i'm doing something wrong.  I also tried to opt in to the beta, but this required a password.

Thank for the tip.  I tried disabling my firewall and antivirus and it still gave me the same error.  I also just tried registering my copy of GalCivII since i hadn't yet since upgrading to a newer computer and i got an error as well, but this time telling me something was stopping my connection to the server.

I just haven't figured out what is blocking my connection yet.  Hopefully I'll get it to work soon.

Thanks again for your help.

Never thought I'd see the day when a Stardock game required Steam. This is very disappointing.

Some have made the case that Steam has improved a lot over time, and I admit that it has been a few years since I last had anything to do with it, so I would like to ask the following:

1. Would I be required to authenticate for anything beyond updates, the initial client download, and the use of features that would have required internet access regardless of the game's distribution method?

2. Would I ever be forced to update (and therefore authenticate) to continue playing a game I have already installed?

3. If I somehow lose access to my Steam account, would I also lose the ability to play games that I have already installed?