Just hit up steam for a refund. This is ridiculous. I've spent wayyyyyyy too much time trying to troubleshoot something that I paid over $70 for. I've done everything suggested and more and its only made my system even more unstable as now when the game crashes back to the desktop...windows itself freezes. I'm sure steam will deny the refund.
they denied mine when I had couple hours which came only from trying to fix the game...
I'm sure that's going to be the case for me as well, I just wanted to start the process for visibility with steam. So if in like 2 weeks the issue is still around I will ask again, and again, and again.
