"Steam must be running to launch this application!"

Like the subject of the thread says, this message pops up every time I try to start my game. I get this message before any splashscreen or anything appears. The game does launch once after first installing it, but when it's done patching, it skips starting the game and gives me this error here below. Every other game works on Steam, and I've never had any issues like this.

http://i56.tinypic.com/fk4nki.jpg

See my thread on the Steam forums here.

I've tried the most common ways of fixing this problem (as suggested in the thread I made at the Steam forums), but to no avail. I've also tried the "Steps to take if your game crashes on startup", but these didn't help me either. I do have AVG, but I've tried to disable it (although I've already had it set to always ignore the steam folder), but again, this have made no differance at all.

Hoping you guys here will be able to help me out here. Really been looking forward to play this game again now that it's been released.

Cheers.

Im having the exact same issue. The game downloads and patches, and then it tells me "Steam must be running". I played the game during beta as well, on a friends account who preordered it. Ive validated my game files, reinstalled the game three times, followed the "MNC Crashes on Launch thread" even though it didn't really address this issue directly. I also tried restarting steam, and my computer. Nothing has worked.

I guess we're stuck in the same boat then. It's good to know I'm not the only one. Others are most likely having this issue aswell, they're just not posting about it.

Hopefully some dev or such will respond here eventually.

It would be very helpful if you could upload the crash logs and a DxDiag for Uber. It's a lot easier for them to fix it if they know where to start looking...

Here you go, my DxDiag. And there is no crash log, because this isn't a crash. This is MNC not noticing that we're signed into Steam (or assuming that we aren't signed in, despite the fact that we are), and thus simply declining us entry into the game. It does this to prevent pirated copies of the game entry, I imagine.

The issue here being that I've owned this game since they started advertising it back in December, and I've played it plenty of times since then. I've never had this specific issue with any other game on Steam.

Oops, sorry. That happens when I don't have enough coffee... xD

Thanks for the DxDiag!

So uh.. when can we expect to have something done about this? :/

Bump. It's been a day since the game came out, and it remains unplayable. No word from any dev or such on the matter?

Here is my Dxdiag file, I think someone was posting about this on the steam forums too for this game, he said he was going to make a thread over here but havent seen it unless he is under a different name.

And again this IS NOT a crash, it just wont launch after it patches, which is actually alot worse I would much prefer to be able to play a crashing game with my 15 dollars then do nothing with it. Hope this gets fixed.

I had the same problem and solved it, though it might be a different cause. I had changed some settings in HostileEngine.ini and HostileInput.ini and marked those files as read only to prevent the game from undoing my changes. During the next update, I kept getting "Steam must be running", and it went away when I unmarked those files as read only.

You might try deleting your config files. Easiest way to do this is open up C:\Users\*user name*\Documents\My Games\UnrealEngine3\ and delete the HostileGame folder.

Bgolus if you were a girl the things i would do to you. Thanks a lot this worked for me, although it was not where you said it was on my computer (win xp) but i found it anyway. I dont even care if the game crashed like 15 minutes later atleast it started.

This solved it for me aswell. Cheers.