The mysterious disappearance of Dragon Age 2 from Steam this week, just before the launch of the game's latest DLC, is yet another thorn in the side of EA's relationship with Valve's Steam digital distribution game service. As many had assumed, the game wasn't removed due to the recent (re)launch of EA's own digital distribution service, Origin, but in fact because DA2's latest DLC doesn't play nice with the Steam Terms of Service.

As the DLC -- named "Legacy" -- is delivered via an in-game store, rather than via Steam's own client, the game was removed. "Unfortunately, Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to sell downloadable content," EA senior VP of global online David DeMartini noted in a statement. He also pointed out that the game is currently available on a variety of other "major download services," from GameStop to Direct2Drive, and that he hopes "to work out an agreement to keep our games on Steam." It's not clear why EA refused to deliver the DLC via Steam's client, but it appears the company won't be changing its stance just yet.