I never figured out what caused the fmod error in the first place, but wanted to report that reinstalling Windows, then Steam and Sins2 has resolved the issue and let me launch the game again.
I am getting an error when launching the game, whether with the launcher or skipping the launcher. The error reads: Failed to Initialize FMOD sound system. Error code = 51 (Error initializing output device.) This began around 9/14; before that I could play Sins2 without any problems. I followed advice in a steam support post about this issue, but so far have been unable to get past the error. I have tried: rebooting computer validating th