Here is what Valve has shared with us about the decryption process:
“The time it takes to decrypt the game has a large degree of variability depending on the total size of the game, the customer’s CPU capabilities, and the customer’s disk I/O speed. Customers with top-of-the line systems will likely be able to start the game within a few minutes. Customers with older/slower machines will take significantly longer.”
So it could likely be any combination of these things, unfortunately
Yes, although it should not be resolving
Thanks, this has been flagged to our team
Please see the following announcements thread: Download Connection Time Outs
This issue is beginning to resolve, so you may need to restart Steam in order to help kick things into gear
You may need to restart Steam (including logging out and back in)
FWIW, I uninstalled earlier to try to help with troubleshooting so I’m starting from square one with my own download… 
Here is what Valve has shared with us about the decryption process:
“The time it takes to decrypt the game has a large degree of variability depending on the total size of the game, the customer’s CPU capabilities, and the customer’s disk I/O speed. Customers with top-of-the line systems will likely be able to start the game within a few minutes. Customers with older/slower machines will take significantly longer.”
We are now seeing improvements in folks being able to download and decrypt the game, and have confirmed this with the team at Valve. We will continue to monitor the situation.
We are now seeing improvements in folks being able to download and unpack the game, and this has been confirmed by the team at Valve as well.
We are now seeing improvements in folks being able to download and unpack the game, and this has been confirmed by the team at Valve as well.
Content Creators are also being affected alongside the other players who are trying to get in – some of the streamers with the most viewers are streaming themselves facing this issue.
While we are investigating the issue with Steam to provide support and assistance, we cannot resolve an issue that is persisting on their platform through the functions of our game.
Please see the pinned forum post – this is not a game server issue, but a Steam-side issue with the decryption and download process. We are working with Valve now to get a solution.
Thank you for the reports regarding game downloads timing out on Steam; this issue is currently affecting all players. Steam is actively looking into the issue and we will update players as soon as we have additional information.
The game – there seem to be issues on the Steam side with decrypting and unpacking the game, which is why we are reaching out to them now.
We are investigating this with Steam/Valve now, and are looking for workarounds in the meantime.
Hey everyone!
We are investigating the Connection Timeout issue with Steam right now. Stay tuned for updates as we get them!
We appreciate your patience
devtrackers.gg