So, it's been about six months since this problem happened. I figured that I would update this with the solution that I found just in case someone else has a similar problem and wants to find a solution to it.
I took a break from it when college started up, and recently got back to it after some time. The original problem was two fold: both with steam and the .exe. When trying to access the program through steam, the program would activate then crash to desktop with no sense of anything ever happening. When trying to access the program through the .exe, the game would consistently launch in VR mode and freeze or freeze on the initial loading screen before getting to the title screen. I tried verifying the integrity of the game cache, uninstalling and reinstalling the game, along with trying to modify the .exe file with the line "--force_disable_VR."
In the end, the solution was rather quite simple. After giving up hope with steam, I completely uninstalled the game from steam and uninstalled the stand alone version as well (I had both versions on my computer since I initially started playing the game on the stand alone and then switched to steam). I restarted the computer and installed the stand alone version of the game since it was obvious that steam was not going to be cooperative. After doing a clean uninstall and then a clean install, the game magically started to work, but still launched in VR. However, this time the game didn't freeze when it got to the title screen and allowed me to uncheck the "Launch in VR" option in the in-game options. After that, I re-downloaded all of the modules that I originally purchased on steam and checked to see if everything works. It does! So I guess I'll be using and purchasing all of my modules through the stand alone version now instead of steam.