peterako1989: I am not talking about during or after the logos. The screen turns black and drops me back on the desktop with the "...has stopped working" error before anything starts playing.

I operate a personal computer with the following specifications

OS win7 64bit
8Gb RAM
i5 750 CPU
Gigabyte GTX970

I tried a variety of compatibility options, none of which worked.

Det_Bullock: Have you tried using Nglide?

peterako1989: Yup, but big update, It would seem the problem goes away when I install the game outside of galaxy, only to come back after I finish a mission

Det_Bullock: Which folder is the game installed in?
If it's inside Program files sometiems there are issues with older software, I ended up crating a games foler directly under C: to avoid random issues.

peterako1989: ok, scratch that. the game is still unstable. As I got a crash at the starup and then right as the menu music started playing. Now it crashes every time I push start. It's as if the game broke itself.