Is it illegal to download it? I've been wanting to play if for a while but I don't want to have to pay $80+. I've talked to people who say it is legal and others say it is illegal.

Wrong place to ask.

Where do I ask then?

It's illegal. Just get Bioshock if you want a similar experience or hope that EA releases it on Steam.

Already got Bioshock... wanted an inventory screen.

ArbitraryWater said:

"Just get Bioshock if you want a similar experience"

"Ow. Migraine."

Unless it's on their official website for a free download it's illegal. But you don't have to pirate it you can Ninja it.

It's definitely illegal, at least for the moment.  I wouldn't be surprised to see it crop up on a site like Steam or GOG, but it might take a while.  Publisher's rights can be a royal bitch for modern distribution of older games.

Just do it.

Hey, Nike told me.

Sadly its almost impossible to buy this new anywhere, but its still illegal to download it, lets hope it goes up on steam or GoG.

There's no such thing as abandonware. Literally. The term was simply made up by people that liked to pirate software that's impossible to buy from the company anymore, but that doesn't mean that it's legal to freely distribute.

We can hope and pray that they'll one day release it as unsupported freeware or, even better, public domain, but until then it's simply a retail game that you'll never actually find in stores anymore. Shame more people didn't buy it back when it came out and was pulling in shit tons of awesome reviews from everywhere.

I never really did like the endlessly respawning enemies and overly fragile weapons. There's a patch that could fix it, but it never really felt like it should have been necessary in the first place. Bioshock totally overcompensated :(

With the exception of places like Ebay, the game is not possible to get anymore and even if you do buy it, the money doesnt go to the developers.
That said, Make up your own mind as to whether you should pirate it.