This is why you are forced to link with battle.net and LAN was removed. It is all about their options! All great dreams take time.

http://www.starcraft-source.com/article/news/view/?id=513

http://www.gardenofaiur.com/blog/russian-battle-net-to-contain-subscription-fees/

Ive been playing it today, took a while to instal and get a battlenet account but once running it was just like old times, only ... better.

They have done a good job as far as I can tell.

plenty of room mates and college kids are on a wired lan and would like LAN support.

I remember playing starcraft and warcraft 2 against guys down the hall, now and then someone would send over a 'spy' to see what was happening on your screen. good times, I'll get SC2 after the price comes down.

The lack of LAN isn't as bad as it would've been for SC1, since back then not everyone had reliable internet. Wired LAN is much rarer nowadays.

Also, about early bad reviews in general - The original Starcraft wasn't amazing when it first came out, it was only after Brood War and multiple patches that it became the phenomenon known today.

I do however agree that Blizzard has gotten greedy. However, that is mostly the fault of its parent company Activision and its dungbrained CEO Bobby Kotick.

I guess the fact that I can play it on any laptop at all makes the requirements conservative by gamer standards, but a 1-year old 20" iMac can't play it on account of its integrated graphics chipset (if I read the requirements correctly). Fortunately I got a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro last year so as long as I enable the beefier graphics card things should go smoothly.

You forgot to mention the outcry over Blizzard omitting LAN capability from SC2.