Failure to launch

[Sunflower]

This has been a recurring problem for me. I bought all three Penumbra games on Steam, and they downloaded fine, but when I try to launch them it's like my computer has a seizure. Steam says the game is running, but when I click on the window the screen flashes black and the window won't stay open (the sound works fine though, and I can hear the intro and load screen music). I have to force it to shut down with the task manager. Other times, however, the game has loaded fine and I was actually able to get more than halfway through Penumbra: Black Plague. This is confusing me because there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the continuous crashing.

I already updated my drivers, verified the game cache (it found over 100 bad files on Penumbra: Black Plague), disabled Steam Overlay, and uninstalled and reinstalled the games. This happens with the other two Penumbra games as well as Amnesia: The Dark Descent, so I think I just have a problem with Frictional Games in general. Is there anything that can be done about it, or should I request a refund?