After emailing directly I've been advised to post here. I purchased the boxed copy to avoid downloading the game through Steam. On the package it said it is "activated online", but in no terms does it say the game is almost fully downloaded.
I bought it under the fair assumption that the boxed game contained the game, as nowhere on the box was this stated otherwise. Living where I do in Australia, Internet speed is slow, as in 4 days 16 hours to download slow. If I had known that I would have had to download it anyway I would have purchased it on Steam and saved $30, or simply not picked it up and saved the trouble of having my already slow Internet rendered unusable for 4 days while it completes.
The box should have indicated that this was the case, because even though I carefully checked it to avoid getting into this situation, I am now both $30 poorer than I needed to be and facing 3 more days of constant downloading. That's not much in the grand scheme of things, but its not fair, and it isn't what I was lead to believe I was purchasing.