Ok, not a hw issue, this is the same I7-3770, Win 8.1, nvidia 650ti I've used for a year or more.The following error occurred while starting up the game:
D3DError - CreateDevice failed: D3DERR_DEVICELOST
Please check that your system meets the minimum system requirements and that your graphics card and sound card drivers are up to date.
What did change was an update to the nvidia drivers to (horrors) beta 344.67.
Any ideas other than rolling back the nvidia drivers? any chance this is another directx problem? If I recall, I had to load an old version of directx to get this game to work once upon a time?