The "update" that was released a few days ago has caused Steam to delete all the E:TW data files and it is now downloading them all again.

This isn't a patch. This isn't new content. This is out of control. Gigabites of data deleted without the user understanding what is going on and now the whole data file is having to rebuild itself. Slowly.

After I am now going on day four of this "update." The best DL speed I get on my base here in Iraq is about 13k a second: I'm 4% complete. At this rate I'll be able to play E:TW again in 96 days.

Well, I knew Steam shouldn't be given carte blanche before, but for whatever reason I told myself to let it on the internet to sniff for updates. Lesson Learned. Steam will stay in the offline mode for the rest of this deployment unless I know exactly what needs updating and I authorize it.

I'm just genuinely baffled at how horrifically stupid this all is. I was thinking this was just a technical issue that would be resolved until just now, but there's no helping it.