Steams been good to me. I got napoleon myself. Love the ability to be forced to keep a CD. Now if the cd is lost/damaged it doesn't matter and if I move to a new PC I will get the most up to date version of the game. What I really like about steam however is the retro games they have re-released like X-com. Super cheap and STABLE. No need to download a dozen patches and hope it installs correctly.
Blizzards battle.net is trying to copy steam but it more like the apple store where you can only buy their products and services. It's a shame they can't cross platform and share IP in this regard to it is a one stop shop.
Btw shep if your going to try Empire, check out
DarthMod