Almost got me then I saw you listed Gmod as an awful title.
You tried.
I will say that some family safety programs prevent Origin from running and allow no way to override it (why I couldn't update Spore).
My friend is an EA freak, only used Steam for Portal 2.
EA doesn't always do a good job of giving it's buyers what they want; I've heard a lot of flak over poorly done systems in rushes to meet deadlines (although half-life 3 proves valve is little better).