Steam has some amazing sales going on right now.  Some everything from Dead Space to F.E.A.R. to Left4Dead 2 can be had for a song... maybe two.  The problem?  Not all these games are campatible with current operating systems, so be warned. 

Exhibit A.... Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

This game was made to run in Windows 98/XP.  It does not play nice with Windows 7.  Maybe it doesn't like the NFTS file system?  When I tried to run it in campatibility mode all sorts of new errors popped up like "failed to find steam".  I know there are a bunch of combinations you can run the campatibility modes, so any help/advice would be appreciated.  Steam doesn't seem to play nice with these settings.  I suppose this is just a friendly warning to those crazed steam sale junkies.  Read the system requirements.  No matter how great the price is on a game.. it doesn't matter if it's not compatible with your system.

Update*  The solution is VTMB update 7.8.  It's an unofficial patch, but it works like a charm.