Amnesia is the second steam game I've gotten recently that refuses to run. It used to be when I had this problem, I could just run the executable in administrator mode, and problem solved. Nowadays I'm running into more and more games that just don't seem to work with the steam/windows 7 x64 combo.
When I tried to buy settlers 7 via steam. the game utterly refused to run and 2 weeks of working with both steam and ubisoft support yielded absolutely zero results.
Finally I bit the bullet and purchased the game via Impulse, It ran perfectly on the first try, no troubleshooting required. I suspected this would work as the standalone demo worked perfectly. (Steam was actually willing to give me a refund n the end, I was impressed.)
Now I'm seeing the same pattern with Amnesia. Only beta graphics drivers could be more up to date than what I have now. I've tried every trick I know. and the game just won't run. The standalone "not joined at the hip to steam" demo works perfectly however.. and I suspect the simple answer to all my woes will be to simply buy a non-steam copy of the game.
that being said, I'd appreciate any input people would have to help me get amnesia running. I have a 3ghz core two quad, 6 gigs of ram and a Geforce 275 running Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit. The game will launch to the launcher screen where you select various options, hitting launch there causes it to think for a moment, then do nothing.
The obsessive answer seeking part of me is writing this post to try and get the steam version to work. The compassionate part of me is saying just buy another copy on impulse, and eat the extra $20 to support a struggling developer, while the responsible me is telling me to get a refund from steam.
Assuming that all drivers are up to date, and other games work fine, I would inspect the settings in the game itself. Try running the game in a window at the very lowest settings you can choose. Check the game's log file in it's folder for any interesting information that might help us or the developers get you up and working.
On the steam version, there were no log files, as the game just didn't run. Fun fact however, since it was just a $20 game, I went ahead and bought it on Impulse, ran perfectly the first time and haven't had any trouble, except that I'm letting my fear of the dark get to me and burning through lantern fuel and tinder too fast.. >.> I'm truely beginning to loathe steam.. gonna try to get a refund from them again, I hope they're as cooperative as they were last time.
I'll say: reinstall that god damn Steam, then redownload the game. I never heard about such thing... just not running at all? :E. I have more than 100 games on it and each one works fine.
when I had this same exact problem with Settlers 7, not even reinstalling steam helped, I had pages and pages of logs of communications with both steam and ubisoft tech support, Steam had to concede the point and give me a refund, I've got about 60 or so other steam games that all run fine myself.
Navigate to C:\Users\username\Documents\Amnesia\Main and delete or rename main_settings.cfg
Try to launch the game again. Don't change any settings in the launcher, just hit 'Launch game' and see what happens.
I realize you have a bunch more games on Steam that run fine, but you are unlikely to get a second refund. I haven't heard of Settlers 7 problems like what you described, so I think it's fair to say that yours was an isolated incident. Maybe others have had the same troubles, but I haven't run across any forum posts where the issue wasn't resolved. The same goes for Amnesia so far.
I'm sure we can get your Steam version up and running, though. If you're up for it, that is. It sounds like you have a playable copy now anyway.