Yeah ... I guess I was orginally on patch 9, then somehow it just got corrupted and stopped working. Then when I verified files ... it never noticed that it was corrupted. When I set it back to patch 8 it was never going to work.

1. Patch 9 got corrrupted, then
2. Verifiy files did not catch it any of 3 separate times, then
3. Setting it back to patch 8 was not a fix.

Fortunately, the last resort of delete and re-install seemed to work, AND my save games were there and worked. Guess that's just part of doing a betatest, heh.

Thanks again everyone.