Now, I'm pretty sure removing things like this isn't really fixing anything other than introducing other problems, but since the game can load a bit further before displaying the 'new' problem it seems like it is related in some way. One segment at a time until I got the same result, then one line at a time until the single line was identified.
When the file was identified I opened it up in Notepad++ and did the same thing with the code. Then I put the folder back and removed one file at a time from that folder until I got the same result. I removed one folder at a time from the install until the game did something other than just silently crash.
Wow - how did you manage to manage to narrow it down to 'DefaultPLatrofmService=SteamEOSComposite' ?
