No, you have to have internet to be able to play the game period. No internet, no play. It is a bunch of bull [censored].
If you want to connect to Steam Cloud, sure. You can always just disconnect your internet after updating. It'll give you a warning that you can't connect to Steam Cloud but you can still play the game itself. No real harm from what I've seen.
Edit: To be honest, Short-Term consequences lead to Long-Term benefits in this case. With the PC version, it may take you a while to download but after that, you're free to play the game, edit the G.E.C.K, install mods, etc.. Things that the consoles aren't able to do due to legal reasons. Try to be optimistic about this.