blasphemy /\E!! Nobody is as bad as EA, especially not steam, they aren't as tight as a badgers behind for a start, they just don't have the best servers at the minute and are never ever ever on time, other than that, valve are possibly the best supplier/makers of games at the minute (opinion ofcourse)
But more to the point of the post, i am having the same issue, only mine is actually crashing steam fully. I have the actual game, bought from steam but not installed and thought while there are alot of people that are going to be trying it, lets reinstall and go online while there are alot there.
Well, the concept is brilliant, the doing it sucks, i can;t get past the preparing download, it gets to the end of the bar and freezes, so i click cancel, nothing, after about a minute "steam has stopped responding" so i have to end program now. I did, when i first clicked it, got it to atleast connect, but i got the message that all you have been getting about full servers and what not. Kinda sucky