Why wont my game start up?? I get to launcher but after that the game does not appear on screen but is view able in taskmanager.

Bump.
I have the same problem. I tried every single compatibility mode, I reinstalled the game, changed settings, reinstalled directx and the game just won't start!

I solved this by checking that it is an allowed program in the DEP settings. You can access them by going to your computer control panel > advanced system settings > performance, under the advanced tab. If the DEP is grayed out open up the command prompt and emter
"bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOn
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx optin"
Then restart.

I'd love to tell you that it worked for me, but sadly it didn't.

Not only will the game not start for me but just trying to launch the game results in either of my computers (one a Win XP desktop PC and the other a relatively new Laptop with Windows 8 and an Nvidia geForce card) effectively being unusable (cannot click ANYTHING with the mouse as it results in nothing but a sound effect) until I manually shut down with the power button and reboot.

I get the same problem. This scenerio specificaly, anyone worked out a fix?