Seems like a stupid question, since the answer to the topic seems obvious to everyone (except me). 
GFWL seems ok to me, but hey..... ive ok'd some pretty average stuff in the past.
 
Anyway - school me!
Why do YOU hate GFWL?

I like it.  I get achievements and have my friends list from my Xbox but, I'm saying this since I'm a console player.

Because its not supported as a whole platform.
 
Microsoft just tried to put xbox live on windows games which wont work.

I only have 1 game with it, Dawn of War 2, and it functions really well with GFWL.
 
I have heard many times that many games implement it very poorly.

Yeah, I love it. It standardizes everything. I can get achievements and I can still talk to my friends who play 360 and I'm still able to mod.

i think it is because microsoft pretty much tried getting the feeling of xbox 360/ live onto the computer. u have to pay just like xbox live to play online. i think people didn't like it because of that. there are also other services that people use like xfire and steam. 
 
i never played a game for windows. this is kind of what i have read from people complaining of games for windows.

free games that give me points???
A+ IN MY BOOKS

I don't mind Games for Windows Live at all.  I've played Fallout 3 and Viva Pinata with minimum intrusion.

It has a terrible, terrible name.  
 
Games For Windows Live
Games For Windows Live
Games For Windows Live
Games For Windows Live 
Games For Windows Live

If it had as much content as steam and came preloaded( become the standard pc gaming platform) it would be almost as good as steam.

" i think it is because microsoft pretty much tried getting the feeling of xbox 360/ live onto the computer. u have to pay just like xbox live to play online. i think people didn't like it because of that. there are also other services that people use like xfire and steam.   i never played a game for windows. this is kind of what i have read from people complaining of games for windows. "

i dont mind it

I have no real problem with it.

I like being able to sign into XBL, see my friends, send messages, and earn achievements. I like the standardization of the Xbox 360 controller into all the games. Overall, I just wish Microsoft would support it more. 
 
Put Halo 3 or Gears 2 on GFWL, and make it cross platform compatible, that would impress me. Right now the only cross platform compatible games are Shadowrun and Universe at War.

I don't hate it... just think it has a ton of unused potential.

I like Games for Windows live. I like the cross-platform friends list, as well as the combined achievement score. It does have untapped potential, but I prefer it over just having an icon on my desktop that plays the game, and nothing else.

It sucks. It's a shitty Steam knock-off and a desperate attempt by Microsoft to invade more of my precious cyberspace. 
 
I really fucking hate GFWL. 

 

As a person without a 360 I hate it. It's a pointless application that does nothing but annoy me. I don't have any friends on XBL and I don't care about XBL achievements, it's just a nuisance needing to sign in to something I don't use in the slightest to play. And I hate that the god damn Xbox 360 controller is becoming the only supported controller in games. So, what, is this it now? Is this the only controller that's ever gonna work on PC games in the future? I'm not gonna buy one. I already have an arsenal of gamepads, flightsticks, joysticks and whatever for my PC that I would like to use.  I haven't touched my copy of Batman: Arkham Asylum because I don't want play it with mouse and keyboard and I can't use anything else. It's ridiculous. 
The beauty of PC games is that you can setup your controls in whatever way you want, I should be able to play a shooter with a fucking steering wheel if I want to. Fuck the Xbox 360 controller, and fuck Microsoft for trying to make me buy one.  

As a program, I love it.  I can easily play with friends, and I'm also an achievement junkie.  Problem is, it took me two or three days to get past an error that stopped me from signing in. 

because I've never used it?

I only got it for Fallout 3 and GTV IV. I appreciated the fact that I could get achievements, since most Steam games don't seem to offer them. Also, it's pretty essential for the Fallout DLC. The thing I hated, however, was that it would get stuck while upgrading waaaaay too often. Sometimes it would crash the whole computer and sometimes it just took a really long time to go anywhere. It was easier to update the games and the client manually. That's a pretty big minus in my books, especially since Steam does those things without any hiccups more often than not.

I like it... if it somehow would merge with Steam. I just think there's a bit of an overload with all these kinds of services, and the one I like best is Steam, I get my games there, I have my friends there, they have achievements...and the CLOUD! THE Mothafu**ing cloud! 
 
GFWL is ok, just ok. But here's why I think Microsoft is not doing much to improve it, or won't in the future. Xbox360. That is the reason, they don't need to. XBL serves them really well, and that's as far as they need to go. The PC for them is second tier.  
 
What can they do? Give up? Just throw away whatever small effort they gave GFWL? I say keep going, but I would also like Steam to have more of a foothold in the newest games, so like you can choose if you want to go to GFWL or Steam. I'd be down with that.

It's not that bad but it still needs work. Not enough games are supported either.

extra crap that I don't need.  I just bought GTA 4 for $7.50 which is great, but ontop of Steam running I am now required to have rockstar social network and games for windows live signed in while I play.

I hate it because it won't work with my xbox gamertag. Every time I try to use it, it fails to download my profile. I have to have a separate gamertag for GFWL. Apart from that, it seems functional.

Same reason I hate Steam. It's a DRM program that limits the lifespan of my retail games. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that GFWL will be discontinued within the next 10 years considering it's a massive failure. Then how will I play the games I bought?

so yeah old thread, but is it still really as bad as it was 2 years ago?   what's a recent game experience you've had where GFW was detrimental to your experience.  Yes i kind of ressurected it due to  Dark Souls PC having GFWL and the outcry and hatred people still have for it.

Well i already posted my reasons and recent experiences there.

@Marz said:

so yeah old thread, but is it still really as bad as it was 2 years ago? what's a recent game experience you've had where GFW was detrimental to your experience. Yes i kind of ressurected it due to Dark Souls PC having GFWL and the outcry and hatred people still have for it.

Works fine for me.

Every other time I try to start Halo 2, GFWL stops the game. It craps out on me and then tells me I can't play that game because GFWL won't start. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, I've tried doing the uninstall-reinstall dance, etc., but it doesn't ever seem to work very well.

@Marz said:

so yeah old thread, but is it still really as bad as it was 2 years ago? what's a recent game experience you've had where GFW was detrimental to your experience. Yes i kind of ressurected it due to Dark Souls PC having GFWL and the outcry and hatred people still have for it.

Works fine for me.

I don't hate GFWL, I just think it is a much much worse service than steam (and even Origin). The most blatant example of this is that if you are offline you cannot access your saves. Imagine if steam's offline mode made it so that you could not access your saves for single player games.

I won't not play a game because of GFWL, but if I am considering getting 2 games and one has it and the other doesn't, it definitely makes that choice easier.

I've had no issues personally with GfWL, the way I can download my DLC optionally is a step beyond Steam (in every other way Steam is more advanced but I've got an indie game + OST DLC in one extreme case and that means Steam forces me to download 1GB of FLAC/WAV/mp3 files if I want to install that 200MB game because there is no way to tell it I just want the game core files, not the DLC music files too).

But there are things like encrypted settings and save files tied to a profile that seem to go against the open PC platform and have screwed other people over and make things more difficult for everyone involved and really shouldn't be there. I haven't come a cropper of them but there are plenty of people who have. Oh, and the patching system isn't as clean as it could be, although I think they're less of a crash-happy abomination with today's games than the first batch of GfWL titles.

The only problem I have is that it's not very steam friendly the first time you launch a game. Forcing you you enter the cd-key multiple times is asinine and there always seems to be extra updates.

After the first time I barely notice it and I guess it's nice to get achievements on my 360 gamertag.

On a scale of 1-100 I hate it at about a 6.3 level.

connection times are abysmal for me, as well as the fact that I've only ever been able to play in offline mode because it keeps asking me to update and yet there is no possible way for me to do so. And of course, when I try and research the issue, all I get is Microsoft's terrible joke that is their technical help. It's amazing to me that the same people made the system that allows me to type right now.

My problem is with Game for Windows Marketplace. I tried to actually buy some DLC but it refused to log me in.

Fine! Don't take my money then.

Other than that I'm fine with GFWL I guess. Achievements are always fun.

Well might as well paste this shit in here:
 
GFWL likely means it (Dark souls) will not even be available in my region
Just like Batman Arkham City, Section 8 Prejudice, Gotham City Impostors, etc...
Nice going. 
 
GFWL is a terrible system stuck in the dark ages.

• Still using microsoft points instead of money and outdated credit card processing to buy said points. Trying to purchase premium civilizations when Age of Empires Online came out was a nightmare. (I had to eventually resort to the skullfuckery of going to a real store, paying for an ovepriced MS points card in euro, that was more points then i needed in the first place, and putting in said code in, instead of a few mouse clicks on Steam) a product that was advertised as $15 ended up costing me $25
  
• It restricts games (yes even those sold on Steam) to only a few regions, while denying purchase in others. I literally cannot see certain games being sold on Steam because GFWL is region restricting them. Nor can I buy them on GFWL.
  
• It is an additional extra third party layer to your game, a clunky one in terms of login and offline/online user profiles. Likewise if already using steam GFWL sits on top of that, bogging down your system further.
• in the most recent of GFWL fuckups i have lost all my 100% progress in Batman: AC, including all trophies, challange room completions, second playthrough, gear, everything. I had a "Perfect Night 2" achievement for it, now it's 0% progress on everything,  no saves. The Steam achievements are still there, but GFWL that was storing the saves lost them.

Oh and back in the day i remember GFWL fucking up my entire Fallout 3 install after DLC came out, as it did for many people.
Oh and matchmaking/connection and pulling stats from the internet was much improoved when Dawn of War 2 switched from GFWL to Steamworks.

It just feels clunky and slow to use and I remember it was being quite a bitch to use when Fallout 3 was out (but then again F3 was buggy as shit so that didn't help.) Don't get me wrong, I would love it if it was well made and all since it'll create competition and that breeds excellence in the market. But Steam, while not perfect is certainly a lot better in comparison to GFWL in a lot of respects so it's quite easy to rag on it once you go back to do something with it. The exact same could be said for Origin. Except that's just barebones now but I'll give them the benefit of doubt since it's a relatively new service from EA.

Clunky, slow shitty UI. I won't even spend more time on trashing it, its that bad.

In a word: marketplace. I have repeatedly attempted to find a search bar to do a basic search and have been baffled how buried even that is. Good luck finding suggestions or older content without clicking through a ton of forms.

I hate when games have the super clunky dropdown menu that GFWL tends to add. Other than that, it's fine. The service itself doesn't bother me.

Cause it's cool to hate!

It won't work, therefore, I can't play Dawn of War II.

At least in the early days, GFWL used to crash, fail to update properly, keep logging me out, buttons wouldn't line up with the mouse, stop you from playing the game if the server was down. It just doesn't compare to steam and sucks if you have the game on steam and needing 2 applications running just to play the game.

Achievements for 360 is nice though.

Just because YOU don't have issues with GFWL doesn't mean that others don't.  One of the reasons GFWL is so hated is that many, many people have all kinds of issues with it, many that prevent them from being able to log in, save, play or even launch their games at all.  I had a great link to a forum post in which a guy essentially breaks down all kinds of reported errors and reasons why GFWL is unnecessary, but alas, I have misplaced it.
 
Multiple logins, terrible content delivery platform, awful UI, frequent issues (unable to connect to online games, overlay crashing, etc), refusing to log you in properly and/or claiming to be "unavailable," existing as Microsoft's attempt to shove the 360 down PC gamers' throat (originally required Xbox gold accounts to access staple online features, for example), supporting one of the worst concepts of this gaming generation (meaningless penis points that serve as the smartest loyalty program ever: one without any rewards), complete failure to launch which prevents any game that uses it from launching, overall completely unnecessary, etc. 
 
Whenever I try to play a GFWL game with a buddy of mine, he's always shown the "LOL CAN'T LOG IN UR SCREWED" error from the GFWL overlay.  Basically, any and every of his Live games will refuse to log him in if programs such as Xfire, Google Talk (which we use for voice chatting throughout our gaming), and Steam are open.  I'm not sure what he does when he wants to play a GFWL game bought on Steam.  Maybe he TaskMans steam.exe shut as soon as he hits the "play" button.
 
When I first got SF IV and GTA IV and installed them, I was excited to play.  Only, I had to log into both Live and Rockstar club to get GTA IV running, only to be greeted by an error message.  SF IV would just remain a black window for a bit and then display "this program has stopped working" message.  After doing some sleuthing, I discovered that the problem was with XLIVE.dll, one of the GFWL files.  To repair it, I needed to apply a hotfix to my OS, which, for whatever reason, refused to install.  I had to manually apply the hotfix, which was a hassle and involved me fucking around in my registry, just to be able to log into an unnecessary in-game overlay to play two games I'd legitimately bought.
 
The only use I have for GFWL is sending/receiving messages to my mates with Echsbawkzes and/or voice chatting with the ones who, for whatever reason, don't have a microphone on their computer.  Or a regular phone.  So yeah, it's pretty useless, considering we could just, you know, email each other.
 
Once again and most importantly, just because you aren't having debilitating issues with GFWL doesn't mean that others aren't.