How to prevent steam from starting the game when adding a DLC?

I was adding free DLC's to some games (like HD Texture packs) and each time I clicked the 'Download' button the game would start, which is very annoying! Why does Valve think that Download == Start game?

Can I disable this behaviour?

I already tried turning off 'Allow downloads during gameplay' in the download settings, but didn't work. Since I already have games running while trying to download DLC's for other games (which are not running at that moment).

Solution 1:

Your only option is to click the Download button on a Browser instead of Steam. This ends up adding the license to your account instead of directly launching the game.

You get a message similar to "PRODUCT NAME is now registered to your account on Steam.".

Take for example "GRID 2 - Demolition Derby Pack" on the Vivaldi browser: