So, on launch I'm getting a black screen and a graphics error dialog. Problem is, the black screen is always on top, so I can't see what the graphics error dialog except by trying to squint at the scaled-down text in the alt-tab preview window. I THINK it's saying something about a graphics setting error, but I can't tell. I'm going to try getting it out of fullscreen mode to read the dialog, but suggestions in the meantime?

Do you by any chance use a Philips AMBX device?
I had to end ambxfcgen.exe before i could start the game.

This error could also be caused by a missing WMV codec. One of our testers suggested Windows Essentials Codec Pack (http://www.mediacodec.org/) as a solution.

And I always recommend the DirectX June 2010 Redist drivers in cases like this:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109

Thanks for the quick reply, but as it turns out just taking the game out of fullscreen fixed the problem and allowed everything to play through correctly.

The game starts with a black screen for me too. Starting in windowed mode doesn't seem to help.

I'm running a 7950 with catalyst 12.8.

Edit: I forgot that I was forcing AA in the control panel. It seems to work fine now.

Diabling Anisotropic filtering and Antialiasing Mode helped. I have an Nvidia laptop GPU.

making it windowed renders it unplayable for me, as i cant see the icons because of the desktop taskbar

Right click the on the taskbar, choose properties then check "auto-hide taskbar". It's not a perfect solution but it should work.