Personally, my favorite thing about the new update is that it reminds me that Day of Defeat: Source exists. It's like getting a free game! Again. More details at the official update page.

Day of Defeat: Source Palermo Update [Steam]

Starting next week, you can expect your Steam client to look and operate a little different. Here are the new features those of you still playing Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2 should be looking forward to.

Guest Passes
Guest Passes allow owners of certain Steam games (purchased either via Steam or at retail) to let their friends play games for free, for a limited time trial. The first game to take advantage of this new feature will be Day of Defeat: Source. Beginning the week of January 8th, owners of DoD:S will each receive a guest pass to give to a friend. So if you own Day of Defeat: Source, watch your games list for your guest pass to appear, and then send it to a friend.

Background client updates
Since the Steam client was first released, it has always kept itself up to date — but now it'll do so without making you wait during startup. Instead, it will acquire new updates in the background and then (once they're downloaded) ask if you'd like to restart & apply them. Steam will also let you know what's new whenever a new update is ready to apply.

Games list Favorites
Steam's catalog of games has grown quite a bit over the past year or so. If you're like most Steam users, the list of games you own has grown pretty long. Time to organize! Soon you'll be able to try out the new Favorites feature in the My Games tab of Steam. Once you've selected a game as a Favorite, it's available for quick access at the top of your list. If you wish, you can also collapse the Installed and Uninstalled sections, leaving only your Favorites in view.

New look
Steam's getting a new coat of paint. We've stripped away all the non-essentials and created a new streamlined appearance, and it'll be available in five different colors.

Not a bad set of updates! I'm glad to see that the background client updates are finally moving to how I always expected them to work. Michael McWhertor

Coming Soon To Steam

If you've yet to pick up Day of Defeat: Source, Valve's throwing a slightly belated Independence Day bone your way with the upcoming free DoD: Source weekend.

Three days straight is about all I ever seem to play these team-based World War 2 games for, so this free weekend will completely obviate any need for me to ever buy the title. Thanks, Valve! For those of you with less fickle tastes, you'll have three days between July 7th and July 10th to once again appraise whether or not this mod-gone-retail is worth 20 clams to you. Florian Eckhardt

Day of Defeat: Source - Free Weekend [Steam]

According to the weekly Valve update:

The Friends system is also nearing the end of its beta phase, and will soon be available to everyone running Steam. [...] There are also a number of additional features we'll be adding to it over time. Early next week, we'll be updating Steam with a convenient way to join the Friends beta.

Sweet! Also news worthy is that high dynamic range lighting is being added to some older Counter-Strike: Source maps, including the classic de_dust.

Blue's News links to a Steam promotional that will let users preload and download Day of Defeat: Source this weekend and test out the WW II shooter. Never checked out DoD? This is a chance to mess with it for free. Head over to Steam for the details.

Day of Defeat Free Weekend [Steam Powered]
Day of Defeat: Source Free Weekend [Blue's News]

Before you drown in acronyms, we'll clarify. Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source will both land some new maps according to a news update over at Steam. Counter-Strike is the energizer bunny of games, that's the only way I know how to describe it.

One of the Valve titles that lives in Counter-Strike's long shadow drops gamers into WWII all over again later this month.
Valve is releasing Day of Defeat: Source on Sept. 26.

DoD:S is the billionth WWII shooter of the last five years, but don't tell Valve head honcho Gabe Newell that, "Day of Defeat: Source represents a major leap forward in both graphics and gameplay, and pushes the Source engine harder than any other Source project," he said.

Pre-loading and pre-ordering can be done via Steam next week. Time to sharpen up the Tommy gun skills.