If Valve don't want to make standout titles any more (and prefer to get money from F2P and from being a storefront), they should be upfront about it. Get Reddit and VGC and GAF to shut up about how awesome Valve is as a dev, because those days are behind them.

Does DOTA 2 have to come in a physical box with a disc and manual before its a standout game?

No, but it has to show at least some good game design that can be credited to Valve. The infrastructure and tools Valve built is great, but they had no hand in the design itself.

You don't think saving PC gaming is "awesome"? Steam's explosion in popularity over the past 5 years has done wonders for the platform.

Yes. But this is not credit to Valve as a good game designer. People still praise Valve as a design company.

Also do you really think Steam revenue has gone up over the last five years? Every other game company and the wider economy have experienced a decline. It's only because Valve never reports earnings that they can maintain the illusion of growth.

We are now getting games that were traditionally only on consoles, when only a few years ago the PC was only considered good for MMOs and Strategy games and most games came with some draconian DRM. SecuROM and GFWL went away because of Steam.

So because Steam is less invasive than earlier DRM it's OK? NO DRM is always preferable. I view Valve as holding back basic consumer rights on being able to own property indefinitely and unconditionally.