I also have this problem, even after making sure firewall or antivirus isn't the culprit and updating visual c++ and .NET. Launcher seemingly does nothing, and opening directly from .exe gets me to the loading page for a few seconds, after which the game crashes as does the crash reporting software. Nice.
In addition to the methods in this thread I also tried doing a clean boot with only windows and steam services running, no difference there. I also checked the integrity of my windows files with the sfc command, same deal.
It would be great if we could get confirmation that this issue is being looked into. Currently it's looking like I'll probably continue beating my head against the wall for a while. give up, leave a scathing review on steam and then ask for my money back and play something that actually works.