Direct2DriveReviews of direct2drive.com

I have had some great experiences with D2D. Downloads are fast, programs always work, etc. Unfortunately, however, I just encountered my first problem. Purchased a second copy of a game from them (Titans Quest & Immortal Throne Expansion) and got the same CD keys that they gave me for the first set. Of course this makes multi-player impossible and defeats the entire purpose of my purchasing a second copy. I have received nothing but generic responses to what should be a simple solution, (A) give me a unique set of keys, (B) refund my purchase. Of course this also begs the question, was this a technical glitch or fraud... Given my past experiences with the company I would say technical, but the longer I have to wait for some sort of response, the less confident I am... Will update when/if i ever hear from them. *I updated in my comments below but will also clarify here. I left my rating at 2 stars because my product was never delivered, money was refunded. Apparently, you can't purchase two copies of a game through D2D. Of course they gladly take your money and will provide a brand new link with a new DRM code, but the CD key will be the same as your first copy - if that isn't borderline fraud i don't know what is... Fortunately, they did refund the money in a fairly prompt manner. I am done using their service, however, as much for the irritation factor as anything.

I ordered Fallout: New Vegas Collector's Edition from them today, for the best price I've seen for a new game like this. As soon as you order, you check your account page and download the serial key to put into Steam. Voila! It doesn't get any easier than that! Great game, great price, plus the Digital collectors edition.

I was charged two times for the same purchase, the Sims 3 and Nightlife Expansion pack. One was charged without tax and one was charged with tax. So I look into my account and I was charged 2 times for 2 games, so essentially I bought 4 without meaning to. I looked at my cart before purchasing, as I always do with online purchasing and there was only one of each. So how did this mysterious double order come about? I then go to contact their NON-EXISTANT support team to find they have no number *Big surprise, not. Shady* and I recieved a generated system response about the difference between authorizations and charges. I know the difference. Thanks. In the last hour and a half I have heard nothing back from them, not even to say they are looking into it. This is complete crap and I am really irritated that I have not been contacted. I will not evvverr use a shady service like this, especially since all it looks like on this site is they come up with some flimsy excuse why they keep falling short. BBB here I come. If i didnt have to give a star I wouldnt. They seriously don't deserve it. Complete crap.

I purchased a game which failed to download the first SIX times I tried. Once the file was on my computer, it failed to open. I used all of their online customer support suggestions and after literal hours and hours of trying, it still is reading as an error message. I'm very familiar with computers and know that my computer is compatible with the software. I contacted the company, to no avail. I also researched a phone number (which was EXTREMELY hard to comeby) and left a message, also to no avail. I stated that I either wanted help or a refund (either would be acceptable, preferably a refund at this point). I am beyond disappointed and plan on contacting BBB as soon as I can. I find it highly unacceptable to have such a low level of service. I consider it fraud and plan on taking full action. I do not suggest using them to ANYONE.

Some time ago I wanted to get my friend a game for a gift. This was before direct2drive had added the option of "Send as a gift". I used my PayPal account to purchase a game through his direct2drive account. Recently I attempted to use PayPal on my own account. Apparently, once you've used PayPal with a given account you can never use it with another. So, I can't use my PayPal account with my direct2drive account because it is permanently linked to someone else's. Moreover, the support involving this has been, well, lousy. The error message I received was a generic "There was an error. Clear your cache, restart your browser and try again. If this fails, contact support." It took over a day to learn that the PayPal account might be the issue. Then nearly a week of "Try again" and "Get your friend to delete your PayPal from their account and try again" (Friend had already done this, but we re-added and deleted). A week after that they finally came out and said that there was nothing they could do about it - the PayPal account was unassociated with any direct2drive accounts, but somehow the restricting of my PayPal account "cannot be undone." Meanwhile, although they did end with "sorry for the inconvenience" the first part of the email basically pointed out how this was all my fault for using my PayPal account (not that they gave any warning) and not using the (non-existent at the time) gift feature. Quite frankly, having waited a week to hear that something that should be technically possible (assuming they use some sort of modern database for their records) can't be done, getting limited information except for "try again" as well as getting the explanation for how it's really my fault and not theirs that this happened, I'm not much inclined to use their services or to recommend them to anyone else.

I am a repeat customer with Direct2Drive but I must now sadly say that I will have to be much more cautious about choosing to purchase from them in the future. It is thoroughly disappointing to see this company cave to steam. The market needs more competition from retailers that work independently and stay true to their values. The reason I bought from Direct2Drive in the past was to avoid having all of my purchases tied to an account where they could be revoked at the whim some company. I also do not trust Valve to lead the entire market for PC games. They clearly want the dominate market share and I foresee them redesigning the PC market to look exactly like the console market should they achieve a sufficiently dominate position. If we can expect that every independent retailer will compromise their values and bend to the will of Valve then we will see exactly that. Value will achieve sufficient bargaining power with developers to bring even more products under their system and to dictate in part what those games will look and act like. This will become oddly similar to how Microsoft is able to operate in the console market. I understand the need to make a profit, but there has to be a way to sell games without allowing one company's system to dominate the entire market. I urge the people at Direct2Drive to re-evaluate their most recent moves and strive to make deals with the developers such that they may still sell these most popular games but in a non-steam version. I will continue to look to Direct2Drive as a source for products that I actually own in a more real fashion. However, I must refuse to buy any products from them which require a 3rd party system to operate. Not only does it make more sense to just buy it from steam if I will have to get it from steam anyway, I cannot support a move that will ultimately break Direct2Drive's business model.

After ordering a game I installed and tried to play. The game would not run at all with only a black screen and eventually erroring out each time I tried. I contacted support and was informed that they will not help after activation. From here I went to the game publisher and searched for solutions to the issue on the internet. After searching I came to find out that this game has a ton of known issues with both Windows Vista and Windows 7 with many people never able to run the game. I have tried to get this game to run for several days now and have had no success. Games with known issues on current operating systems should not be sold without warnings of some sort. I have contacted customer support at Direct2Drive several times asking for refunds as the game is not playable and have had no success. The best they have done is direct me to forums on the internet to look for solutions. It is completely unacceptable to sell games that cannot be played on current systems. I would have no issue if a warning was listed prior to purchase, bu there was nothing. I shouldn't have to search the internet before buying a game to see if I can run this on Windows.

Direct 2 Drive is the future; well, at least the "soon". Less litter, less gas spent on route, less lots. One of the best features is that you can download over and over, in case you lose your data -- this way a broken disk no longer causes headaches. I also love the manuals in PDF; if I wanted CDs and handbooks laying around, I'd listen to Iced Earth on compact and play DND. So I just downloaded my 6th game. The speeds are great (Fallout 3 in 15 minutes), the ease of use great, and the fact that I didn't have to drive to the store is fantastic. Good selection, too, and if you take the time to read the minimum specs per game, and adhere to them, there should be no difficulty getting the game to run. I have to tweak the hell out of each game, but that's no different than disk-fed files. My only complaint is that the .exe's are encrypted. Thus, fabulous after-market adds like Bethesda's OBSE are a no-go. D2D should do more to accommodate independent modification, especially when it's manufacturer-backed. Still, I've had ZERO technical difficulties and have always found the prices more than fair, especially with the *CONSTANT SALES*. I give it a very solid and enthusiastic four stars.