Game won't start at all, not AVG related

[Humbug]

Trying to start the game does nothing. Launcher.exe just sits there doing nothing and has to be shut down manually in the processes window. I have tried reinstalling the game, I've tried updating to newest graphic drivers, I've tried disabling firewall and anti-virus (nod32) and verifying game integrity a bunch of times, running the redist installers etc, all to no avail.

I'm on Windows XP SP3 using AMD Phenom II Quad cpu and two Radeon 4800 series GPU's in crossfire.

The only other game that has had this behaviour was due to crossfire not being properly supported but I've tried disabling that as well.

What gives?