I've just bought FC2, and I'm having a similiar problem. When I try to start up FC2 I get the same Flaming Cliffs 2.0-window, and the beginning on the background music. Takes a few seconds and then the whole window disappears.
Nothing is printed in errorlogs, and I've tried all the little tricks mentioned here, including new DX, switching USB devices and redownloading from a diffo source & reinstalling.
However, I get no runtime errors or anything, and my multiplayer.bat boots up fine.