[quote name='hordak']So, aside from the game's own activation, do I have to "phone in" every time I play a direct2drive game?[/QUOTE]
I don't think any D2D games have per-run authorization, at least D2D doesn't add anything that does that (and I don't know of any games that do that independently -- EA floated the idea for Mass Effect, weirdly enough, but there was a lot of outcry and it didn't ship with it).
As far as installation-time activation, it seems to depend from game to game. I think the rule of thumb is it either has the same activation as a boxed edition, or if that's activation-free I think D2D add their own installation-time activation/authorization check. But while I've bought several DRM-free games (they advertise them as such, if they are) from D2D, the only activation games I've ever bought from them are Chronicles of Riddick and Mount and Blade, both of which have developer-provided activation.
In Mass Effect's case, the boxed copy uses Securom activation and there's a limit of 5 installations. So presumably the D2D version includes the 5 installations limit too, considering it lists an internet connection as required. I think the Steam copy is actually the only one that doesn't have Securom or that limit (though Steam itself has to "phone in" every time the game loads).
This isn't such a huge problem now that the 1.02 patch includes the ability to revoke an activation during uninstallation, but in the 1.5 years before that patch came out there were a lot of people who used up their limits and EA is apparently reluctant to provide additional activations. Something to keep in mind if you don't go through and uninstall everything off your box before you upgrade / reformat / have a hard drive crash / lose your laptop.
As far as downloading and installation from D2D, you either follow their promptings to install some sort of D2D download manager which downloads your game, or you ignore the promptings and it gives you a regular old link that you can right-click/save-link-as or copy/paste into your own download manager. It's usually a (10GB or so in this case?) .zip which you uncompress into basically the contents of a DVD/CD, with a setup.exe that you run. You can go back to your profile later and download your game again, or have it email your CD Key to you again, if you lose either. You have to download any patches separately, and they have to be D2D-specific versions. They're all listed in a giant mess on their patches page, although sometimes they just update the game instead, and sometimes a developer will release a D2D-compatible patch to the web at large, in which case D2D usually doesn't stick the patch up on their page or mention its existence. In Mass Effect's case, they have the latest patch available on their page.
