Installed divinity 2: developer's cut and launched for the first time from desktop. Played the larian and publisher splash screens, then blacks out to the desktop. Tried this a couple times and changed the compatibility mode to win8, still doesn't work. Running win10, amd radeon. Please help, super frustrated.

same here on Win10 with NVidia (just to rule out driver issues). Also installation problems - installation in German fails via "cannot find DirectX" error, while installation in English does complete, but then crashes upon start.

Hm, did you instal in c..\ProgramFiles\... ? That is known to cause problems with some games.

The issue with the german installation is probably something you want to tell support so they can have a look on the installer.

Did you manage to fix the problem? I just tried booting the game up, and met the same end as you. Intel processor, and AMD graphics card. It's a shame too, I fancied revisiting the game after I dropped it on last gen systems, and picked this up in a sale awhile back. Kinda wish I launched it sooner to test, then at least I could try for a refund.

Here's a few things I heard can help:
Re-installing Physx = Don't have an Nvidia card, so that's out.
Downloading codecs = The codecs were meant for a dead OS, and the "pack" linked, a family member downloaded and got malware from years ago, something I had to fix. That's going nowhere near my PC.
Not installing in Program Files = None of my games are, using a seperate game drive.
Rename/deleting two videos in "Divinity 2 DC\Data\Video" = Done, did not fix the issue.
Running in compatibility mode = Tried Win 8, 7, and XP, all met with no luck.
Running as Admin = Also no luck.

getting the same CTD after the splash screens, but got it running in the most unexpected way. i'm just using an AMD Athlon 200GE APU with it's inbuilt 3 Vega cores. i thought what the hell and just installed the PhysX driver mentioned in the thread 'https://www.gog.com/forum/divinity_series/divinity_2_developers_cut_crashes_to_desktop_after_launch'. even though my GPU is AMD the game now works fine. i can adjust the graphics settings fine and no hitches as well, go figure?

Doesn't matter. The game still needs it to run. I've been having the same problem after a different game installed another, even older version of PhysX that replaced the one used by Divinity II. Try installing this version: https://www.nvidia.com/object/physx-9.13.0604-legacy-driver.html

Make sure to reboot after installation, because I got a missing DLL error when I tried to start Divinity II, which went away after rebooting.

Cheers for the information. Just gave it a shot, and it actually worked. To be honest I was kinda skeptical, but I'm glad I can give this game a go again. So thanks again.

TL;DR for anyone looking this up in the future. Even for AMD cards, make sure you have Nvidia's PhysX installed, it fixed my issue, and hopefully does the job for OP (garvinkw) too.

Yes, even with an AMD card PhysX is still used, just without hardware acceleration.