TO ANYONE CONCERNED:
THE LAUNCHER IS NOW WORKING.
Thank to all of those who helped.
Now, the solution I found to it turned out to be very simple.
1. Open iTunes, and put 2HB by The Venus In Furs, with Thom Yorke on the vocals on.
2. Download the .NET Framework 4.0 web installer (this thingy here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/e...displaylang=en )
2.1 Install it.
4. Open Steam.
4.1. Think it won't work.
4.2. Grin as the fancy crosshair appears on the screen.
Note: Step 1 is not mandatory, but it's still highly advised.
Now, to the arduous process of making this thing playable...
EDIT: I'll just keep editing this very post just for the sake of... of whatever. Current state is, all of the menu's running pretty and everything; graphics aren't quite working and all I get when clicking fly is sound. And what a sound, by the way! But uh, I'd rather if that sound came with video. Pretty please? Trying some tweaks here and now going to (try to) fly the thing properly to see if any of the tweaks worked.
EDIT 2: They did, after all! All it took was run the DirectX installer again and restart the computer, everything seems to show as it should, and if to go strictly technical, the game
runs and I
am able to fly all right. The performance was downright sh*te, it must be said, but for the time being I'm taking that as a minor, since I haven't fiddled with any settings and my rig isn't what one'd call ideal for the task.
The update is now out and Steam's taking care of it for me ATM, I'm waiting for it to launch so I can jump in and see what's the score.