Quite the opposite for me. Having only random ass characters in the story would kill all my hype. Also I wished for Ciri as MC in the next game ever since I player W3, so for 10 years now.
Half Life 2 works offline just fine. You can even run the exe directly without Steam open. You just cannot compare the two. But yes, if Steam get shut down you obviously cannot download them again. Same goes for games on GOG. You could archive them, but you can also archive games from Steam, it’s all the same.
Still waiting for them to drop Denuvo so I can pirate it. Yes, I am aware there are some old builds out there, but I know what kind of crazy circumvented Denuvo in those. No, thanks.