Bought spore a couple days ago, same exact problem here.
Personally I would recommend all those that suffer with not being able to access the online features make your voice heard through the Steam review system: https://store.steampowered.com/app/17390/SPORE/
It's quite disappointing that this has been ignored; Considering the online service is still up and hosts over 190 million creations; The stuff you get from Maxis is extremely outdated; Not to mention almost impossible to rank up your captain to rank 10 in Galactic Adventures without playing new adventures via the Sporepedia.
Even something as simple as putting a discretion on the Steam Spore page that online functionality is highly likely to not work would be enough; Even if it doesn't fix the actual problem at hand.
I would also recommend refunding the game on Steam; Even if you're past the window to refund or have additional hours over the 2.0 hour mark. You can do this here (Consumers from places such as the UK and EU probably have additional leverage and consumer protections) - For those with less protections, mentioning that Online Functionality is broken in this version of the game should help your case, giving evidence such as this thread, and this guide on Steam; And stating that the removal of CD-Key's for the Steam version actively makes registration impossible.
If you're going to buy the game, you will want the GOG version. While it's not on sale at the moment, it generally does during the 'Summer Sale'. I'd expect it to be much cheaper in about three weeks time.
