Whenever I start a new save, I am dumped onto a black screen with the main character (see attached screenshot). I can walk around, and moving the mouse makes the cursor appear, but there is nothing to interact with. I did not see an opening cutscene (assuming that this game has one).

On Windows 7 x64, tried running both with/without administrator privileges.

Looks like a graphics driver problem. Do you have the June 2010 version of DirectX 9.0c? If not, you should install it, because most older games need it (and don't worry, it runs alongside DirectX 10 and 11 so it won't affect your newer games). Get it direct from Microsoft here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109

There should have been an intro cutscene as well. I thnk it's done in-engine so I don't know why it wouldn't have played for you. Perhaps a video codec problem? Anyone else know?