huh, even tho i have no startup switches in any shortcuts or in the steam properties panel, I did notice the flags in the log file.
my normal startup of the game is via the desktop shortcut that steam placed when the game was installed. I just now tried to run 7 Days directly from the EXE in the folder and it ran fine. something with that steam link (which simply says: "steam://rungameid/251570" ) seems to be the cause.
Thanks for attempting to help guys (gals?), it was steam... go figure 😕