I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the people meant to help us and say they are completely in the dark and not clueless/useless. After struggling with this issue multiple times, I messed around and managed to get to the launcher; so at least that's something. I suspect the main issue had to do with the SimCity uninstaller never booting from the windows Programs and Features area in the control panel. Registry edits never fully did it either. So...
My steps:
1.Uninstall Origin. You can leave behind other games, just make sure Sim City is deleted.
2. Download CCleaner. Seriously. When you do, go to the tools section and find the program uninstaller tool. Find the SimCity entry and uninstall it. Through CCleaner, it ran the uninstall perfectly, not like the crap where Origin just directs you to the Windows tool instead of doing it itself.
3. *I can't be responsible if you take this step and something goes wrong; just know it worked for me. Don't try this step if you don't have common sense on what may be critical in you registry.*
Not satisfied, I searched my registry for every mention of "SimCity" and "Origin" deleted the ones that didn't seem critical If in doubt just leave it. Search for the registry solutions on the forums; it gives you the exact directories you should be checking. Unfortunately, I've been unable to locate those "solutions" again. Also be careful you don't delete any previous Sim City games' registry entries. I have Sim City 4 still installed so I had to be careful. The entries make it easy to tell the difference.
4. I deleted all temporary files, also through CCleaner. I also browsed to my temporary files and deleted what the system allowed me to for good measure. I run a swap drive for an SSD and CCleaner missed these.
5. Reinstall origin.
6. Download SimCity.
7. Pray when you click that Play button.
I really hope this helps the few of us affected by this problem. Support seems to be overwhelmed or just plain useless (I'm looking at your, Origin chat support.)
