Sound familiar? If so, try the following:
Find the Steam folder (in Program files), then locate the direct x 10 folder in SteamApps. Run the dxsetup file to force the program to install dx10.
It took my boyfriend - who is in web development and codes for a living - over an hour to find out that the game was simply failing to complete updating my machine to directx 10 (I generally run dx11 being on a 64bit os), thus the whole thing wouldn't run. I have no idea why this occurred, and evidently it hasn't been a problem for most folks; but I thought it worth posting if I could save anybody else the pain...
