Well, it was crashing at the bathysphere ride up into Rapture (the name of the city in Bioshock) but apparently one of the fixes I had tried (reinstalling DX9, the ATI bioshock hotfix, etc) did fix it...but the game just didn't know it yet.  Uninstalled and reinstalled a third time and this time it got things right. 

The game looks great and it's one of those games you can't stop playing (until you finish or need sleep). Part of it is standard...you've got a rather linear goal (life is like that a lot of times though) but many, many ways to achieve it.  It's interesting to listen to all the tapes laying around.  It's obvious that some of the characters go crazy by using the technologies they've created.

Combat is really interesting because your augmentations to weapons, combat skills or physical abilities.  I've dealt with hordes of security bots (when I broke out a display window) by simply standing still and letting my chameleon kick in, or hordes of unfriendly people by killing one then beating the others with the bodies of the dead thru telekenesis.  You can even make them fight each other in the right situation.  Anyway, great game and BTW, the water looks frigging awsome!