well....
i got it :D

hopefully my work around works for you too. (sorry for my bad english in advance!)

first i downloaded episode 1 on steam (its for free right now).
then i copied all files from GoG into the Steam folder --> didnt work, only episode 1 was playable
then i downloaded the latest crack from gamecopyworld.com (CodeX)
extracted it into the steamfolder --> started the game didnt work, only episode 1 playable

copied LifeIsStrange.exe from Steam folder into GoG-Life is Strangefolder (Binaries--> Win32)
overwrite

started game, everything was in english (im from Germany) and.....TADA.. Episodes 1 to 5 are playable.
during all these steps mentioned above, i downloaded the game on GoG Galaxy on Background again. dont know, if it matters.

try it, maybe it works.

in short words:
put GOG Files into Steamfolder
crack Steamfiles
start game
copy LifeIsStrange.exe from steam into GOGfolder

hfgl!

Thats alot of work, and odd. Ill just get a refund and buy it from somewhere that sells working games.

Sound like you are just using the cracked game exe.

I can start and play the game without any issues, but I remember having issues getting the Steam version to run.
I had to unplug my Headset and change the bit depth/Hertz in my speaker settings.

Edit:
I'm not using Galaxy, which I think could be the culprit for some.

I have an error:
Life is strange has stopped working.
Fault module is common.dll

Once again, thanks for hunting out some more potential solutions. Tried them and unfortunately the game still won't start. Hopefully GOG will get this sorted asap.

I wonder how many of the people here in the thread have tried to start the game without Galaxy.

For what it is worth, I've bought complete LiS on Steam, finished it and still had the savefiles on my HDD. GOG version was still launching without any problems and it even was able to load my old savegame.

Win7 / Ultimate
Tried with and without Galaxy 2.0 - both working

same issueS here

Both Life is Strange AND Before the Storm crashes on very launch, without even reaching, i dunno, game's splashscreen/logo/whatever.

Life is Strange gives the whole crash window involving an issue with "common.dll" in the extended info from the crash window

Before the Storm crashes, telling me it made a whole crash data info dump in a timestamped folder

Same machine, two games, both with different engines (UE3 for LiS and Unity for LiS:BtS)
fun fact: i installed steam on this computer i really didnt want to, as i keep it for drm free game.. I already had both games on my Steam library so...
And guess what:
Both steam versions of the game are WORKING

which may mean it would not be my specific machine/windows installation to be at fault

How GOG could not give a little more testing for such big publisher release? the crashes are easy to reproduce and witness.. I wouldnt have minded such a released to be postponed by a week or to, if so it would work from the start, instead of this sad mess right now, that will impact the sales, the game reputation and possible many customers refund requests (which would feel legit tbh)

I expect them to return from the weekend and fix it. I think Monday-Tuesday.
Given that the game doesn’t work NOT for everyone, looks like this is some local problem: maybe different versions of MSVCR110.dll (some of them are incompatible, obviously).

If I could not wait, then as an experiment and a temporary solution, I would try to take the specified library from the one who has the game working and put it in the folder with the game (next to exe).

No Galaxy here - never been installed - and the game just doesn't start.

Okay, so Galaxy is not the reason for you. Did you try to turn down the UAC in windows?

That obviously is the problem ... the game does not crash for everybody and I don't know hoe many different testing PCs GOG is having. So IF they could reproduce the crash and still released it they really are to blame. If the issue did not occur on their testing systems how would they have known? Of course now that several people are complaining they know and they have to figure this one out asap.

It's not the MSVCR110.dll file. Some people didn't have a copy or had an outdated or old copy. So, for those people (re)installing something that includes MSVCR110.dll helped them. Neither the Steam version nor the GoG version actually includes this file in the game directories. Since for some people the Steam version works while the GoG version fails, it can't be this file.

The only real difference between the Steam and GoG versions is that GoG provides two extra dll libraries and, of course, the executable is different.

You don’t understand how shared libraries work, right?

The file does not have to be bundled with the game so that the game depends on it.
Incompatible may be some specific version (or versions) of this library. Therefore, not everyone has a problem.

I turned off the UAC (years ago) so it doesn't look like that is the problem either.