Heyyo,
Yeah, I'm not too big of a steam fan myself, but hey, sometimes you just gotta suck in that gut, n' just live with it. Cause most non-steam versions are illegal anywho, n' I can live with little popups... as long as they don't start filling steam with ads, I'll keep using it with some content. And for the friends list? I stopped using that like, a few months ago, it's useless cause you get booted all the time. Me n' me buds just fire up good ol' xfire. it does the job, no complaints here.
If you don't have xfire, I suggest you get it. It allows you to join any mp game a friend's playing on by just 1 click of a button. It supports many games. HL, CS, Far Cry, Doom3, Quake3, BF1942, etc. MANY games. Plus now if you've gotta bud in TS, you can jump onto their TS server with a button click too... but it doesn't support leaping into channels, n' channels with passwords yet. Heh, I kindof feel like I'm now spamming aboot xfire, but it's good.
http://www.xfire.com/xf/index.php