Just got the same issue. If you launch the game from the file location it will run. However, I don't think steam reads it as running, so you might not get play time registered.International forums are not so responsive.
Javich said he is with a problem when trying to initialize the game and receive this message: Exception initialising application: String reference not set to an instance of a String. Parameter name: s
And I am receiving the same error here (yesterday I have played without problem). Image attached.
View attachment 127964