I'll third that, I have had no problems from Steam whatsoever. No spam, they don't take advantage, etc.
(I only have one minor annoyance about Steam - I downloaded Mass Effect 2 from steam. And there's an interesting difference between that and ME1. Since ME1 I bought the disk - I can play that anytime, even when I'm not online. With ME2, I HAVE to be online because Steam has to connect and verify before the game will start. 99.9% of the time, having a net connection is not an issue for me. (Especially for MMOs like Champions Online and Star Trek Online that I got through Steam). But it feels "odd" to have to be online for a game that itself is not an online game. YMMV. )
(I only have one minor annoyance about Steam - I downloaded Mass Effect 2 from steam. And there's an interesting difference between that and ME1. Since ME1 I bought the disk - I can play that anytime, even when I'm not online. With ME2, I HAVE to be online because Steam has to connect and verify before the game will start. 99.9% of the time, having a net connection is not an issue for me. (Especially for MMOs like Champions Online and Star Trek Online that I got through Steam). But it feels "odd" to have to be online for a game that itself is not an online game. YMMV. )