Game also won't run for me. Started out with the pop up window error message "Unable to load game library: Engine.fll. Please make sure it exists and the latest Direct X is installed". I checked the Mars Colony Challenger folder and engine.fll was there. My laptop is Windows 8 with DirectX. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game, steam, and restarting the computer in various sequences. Game won't open.
So I came to the forums looking for answers and found this thread. I ran dxdiag and confirmed that I have DirectX 11. I tried reinstalling DirectX. Then I no longer got the popup engine.fll mesage; instead, the screen flickered, seemed to change resolution, then went black for a couple of seconds, then returned to the desktop at original resolution. Again game won't open.
I also tried installing on my windows 7 desktop. Same initial error. I went back to my laptop, and tried copying the two files mentioned above into the Mars Colony Challenger folder. uninstalled and reinstalled again. Now when I try to run the game, a small white rectangle (~ 25 x 150 pixels) appears in the upper right corner, and the cursor disappears in an invisible rectangle occupying the upper right 2/3 of the screen. Still no game.
Despite the fact that I have never successfully opened the game, in Steam the counter for time I've been playing has been steadily increasing and now stands at 115 minutes. I'd really like to join my team already playing the game. Please help.