When the stars align, GFWL works well enough that I can pretend it's not there, but that's the highest praise I can give it. That's the extent of its features, and every single one of them is markedly inferior to Steam. It does multiplayer matchmaking, a rudimentary friends list, email-like text chat, voice chat, syncing settings over the cloud, cross-platform play (in three games from 2007/2008) and achievement tracking. Not to be confused with its benign brother, plain-old Games for Windows label (which isn't actually software), or the now-defunct Games for Windows Marketplace, GFWL is the Windows side of the Xbox Live network, except without any of the features that make Xbox Live interesting or useful. Part of that is thanks to some truly awful branding by Microsoft. There's a lot of confusion as to what the words 'Games for Windows Live' actually mean, and why they inspire such dread in so many PC gamers when uttered in connection with an anticipated game. GFWL is not to be confused with its benign brother, plain-old Games for Windows.
