Unlike some others in the forum who, after purchasing this game through Steam, have problems running at the registration phase, I have got through that but have been stopped from using the game.

After starting the program for the first time, I recieved the registration notice, filled in my information, and registered without a hitch.  I expected the program to run shortly after I hit the okay button on the "registration successful" screen.  It did not.

I exited everything and restarted steam and attempted to run the game again, this time with the task manager running.  I could clearly see a process named Sins of a Solar Empire Diplomacy.exe appear.  After a short time, however, this did not resolve itself, nor did a corresponding entry appear on the Applications tab of the task manager.  This process reports using about 26K memory and 0 CPU.  That was my real cue that nothing was happening, it never used any of the CPU.

Being given the option of playing any one of three games, I decided to try each game.  I got the same result with all three games.  Then I attempted running the game, not through the steam client, but by navigating to its location and using the normal double-click.  This produced the same result.  Finaly, I tried the "run as administrator" option on all three games, to no avail.

If anyone can offer any help solving this problem or even diagnosing it, I would be very appreciative.  I apologize that I am not able to provide better information about the problem, but my limited troubleshooting ability has been quickly overcome.