Yeah, same. I cracked it properly but still no luck. Shame, such a good game too. I'll try to crack it again, sometimes my files in crack folders just don't transfer correctly.
EDIT: It's dead, Jim.
Won't start without Steam popping up; maybe has something to do with the Steam api DLL file I need to download for the error to go away. I tried it sometime in either 2017 or 2016 and it worked fine.