Valve has a 1.3/5 star rating from the Better Business Bureau

I've had good support. Last one was when Steam mobile Auth came out I worked with one of the support people to debug my phone so the developers could support it and it all worked out. Could be rare, but typically people with good experiences don't complain to anyone.

i have asked twice now to escalate the ticket to a supervisor in replies to the ticket...and no response either time...just another scripted response.

I have troubles with the timeline here. So you played the game for like two hours and then wanted to refund it. Did you do this directly? Because in your OP Steam states that you played for more then 5 hours which makes a difference of three hours. Also did you notice that the game is still running after you ended it or only after it was too late and you started the refund? Because if you noticed it directly you could have forced down Steam or the whole PC. Not the most beautiful solution but it would have terminated the program atleast. Also I don't understand enough about programming but it is possible that the Steam Client is not the (only) one to blame since such problems mostly occur for the same games. It might be some fault of the developers ot The Culling as well. Especially if on their shopsite other users state they are having the same problem. Maybe try talking to them if they can do something about it.

Also never had to use the Support if I remember correctly and from what i read I accept that is bad. But remember that they have one of the largest userbase in the world (and an userbase which is constantly bitching just about everything). So any comparison with other fall flat directly.

I think your best shot would be talking with the developers of the Culling.

arent the culling devs beeing cheeki there?

Nobody at steam will give a crap about some bureau's opinion when money's basically being thrown at them.

I'm SHOCKED they have a 1.3 rating, I'd have expected it at least a full point lower.

Your experience is similar to mine though having nothing to do with a refund. Their answer would be so far off what my issue was I couldn't believe that whomever received it had any reading comprehension at ALL. (plus it took over 2 weeks to even get a reply) So when after 2 attempts and more than a month and a half later you're left hoping their breathing works as well as their competence at their job.

Refund word in topic -> go read refund FAQ.
Early Access game not running properly -> go read Early Access FAQ.
Problem with running a game -> go read "how do I install games on Steam" FAQ.
Thanks for messaging Steam Support, hope your experience was good.

Steam support is a joke. My favourite is still Mullin's ticket asking why are they paying high USD prices and still get region restricted games, and in turn they thanked her mail and linked the FAQ about region restrictions.
My friend wanted to change the mobile phone number in Steam but couldn't, because it would require a code sent to mobile, but couldn't do it because the number was bad. (wrong region, totally useless). Also he told them that the subscription, service provider, even phone series is the same as it was when created. He told these in the ticket, and got a response that even advised him of deleting text messages because maybe the memory is full, maybe service provider problems, maybe no connection to the mobile network while, not even addressing the topic of the ticket that was about a fucking wrong mobile number.
At this point it's borderline obvious that bots are replying with links to FAQs based on searchwords, and while it can work at the simplest cases, in a more personal or unique matter it's totally useless.

Steam support is terrible, yes.

The Steam Controller isn't working with Mac since forever, they did gave every OS X user the Valve F&F Pack. Alright, I still cannot play those games without the Controller but I thought they will fix it in the meantime.. I wrote them again in the beginning of the year, they responded "What game are you having issues with?" pretending there's no known issues,. I listed them a couple of games I tried, took them another week to tell me they are looking into it and another 6 weeks or so to then let me know there's no news yet, if I'm interested in a refund I have to contact the seller. LOL what a joke, you can only give it back for 30 days here and I mean it's not a hardware defect, it's them not caring about Mac (even though they do false advertising by claiming it supports Mac). So, just a pure joke letting me wait for almost half a year now and then tell me to refund it (through Gamespot, which isn't even possible anymore and on top of it I got mine as a birthday present).

Just one of my experiences. Always the same copy/paste crap :(

I haven't had the greatest experience with steam support either. Most of their responses seem automated which I can sort of understand considering how many people they have to deal with but at the same time, in serious situations involving scammers, I have yet to get much of a response at all from them. I love steam in general but their support seems a bit sub par (maybe just enough to handle most situations but not enough to handle uncommon serious situations).

Now if they can remove the weeks long hold on people who don't want their shilled phones.

Funny thing is that EA got an A+ with 1400+ complaints http://www.bbb.org/greater-san-francisco/business-reviews/video-games-wholesale-and-manufacturers/electronic-arts-in-redwood-city-ca-64196

Oh, just noticed that EA plays the subsidiary card; meaning individual divisions/products have subsection complaints, so I am not sure at the total amount of complaints based on other divisions such as bioware for example.

I wonder what that 0.3 in the rating is. That at least they pay the publishers?
My bigger surprise is this poll, that there are more than 12 people on this planet who had good experience with Steam support. The only time they helped me was when I requested game removal, all other actual issues were closed with a stock answer or without any reply.

where is option BBB has ENVY?

In short I gave Steam a lot of money,I needed supports assistance once,they failed,more than just failed,the first support person was so frustrating that i asked for another person to help me with my problem,after couple of days another support person told me that"its not in their policy to help in my case".After that I have not spend a dime directly on steam.Steam has no respect for its customers.

As some oeople have already stated here: It's most likely an automated message they always send in the beginning. Reply to it once or perhaps few times to get reply from real person. That's it. I think You should receive your refund.
Good luck!