the opening screen is a big red and white exclaimation point
there are no carriages at the start
everyone's skin is purple
there is no detail on the ground
clothes are red and white exclaimation points
there are no eyes
the game crashed on me about 5 minutes in
and many, many more

WHAT THE HELL, BETHESDA!?!?

Sounds like a bum install, not bethesdas fault... sure it installed and unpacked properly. Sound like steam screwed up the descryption

1 - Right click on the elder scrolls V: Skyrim.
2 - press local files
3 - press verify integrity of game cache.

i click on the icon, it doesnt say "local files" the closes i can find is "open file location" and even then there is no "Verify Integrity of game cache" speak english to me

He doesn't mean right click your shortcut, go into the Steam game library and find "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" then right click on that and go into properties, go to the local file tab and then click on verify integrity of game cache.

okaay, then what? after i've verified the files, do i just start skyrim normally?

Yeah.

thats because you dont have the meshes file and the textures file, verify the validity of the local files through steam

okay its updating, lets hope it works

Do you meet the minimum requirements?