My game was crashing right after the splash screen like several others on this forum. After several frusterating hours I ran accross an error message for the application hang (other than the ntdll.dll error) with cyberlink powerdvd cloud.ax message. I uninstalled powerDVD and all works well. I hope this helps.

It would have been so much better if only the subject line had included the word "solved". Oh, well, I don't think that can be edited! Gald you can play now.