Over at the Gearbox forums, 2K games and Gearbox have officially announced that the PC version of Duke Nukem Forever will need a linked Steam account to play the game. Gearbox community manager said,
The PC release of Duke Nukem Forever will incorporate Steamworks. It means that regardless of where or how you buy Duke Nukem Forever on PC, your purchase will be tied to your Steam account, ensuring that you'll always be able to install a copy of the game even if you lose your disc.
I don't see that being a problem for PC gamers, it's the Ubisoft kind that annoys the hell out of most people, speaking of Ubisoft, it was recently announced that ACB will be making its way to PCs, May 17 along with their sloppy DRM.
Back to Duke, after a 10 year long wait the game releases May 3, 2011 and pre-ordering the Balls of Steel Edition wouldn't be a bad idea for Duke fans after all(relevant image below).
