Technical problems

I've played AOE2HD for the past few years on a shitty Walmart PC with no issues. I recently purchased a newer, less shitty Walmart PC because my old one *accidentally* was left outside in the rain... For some reason, I can't get AOE2HD to work on this new PC to save my life. I have read through the "GAME DOESN'T START!" thread on the steam support page to no avail. I've tried AOE2Tools to convert and play on Voobly, which seemed to work for a few games until they all started de-syncing. I can't help but think that the two are related.

​

Here's what happens every time I try to load AOE2HD ( see picture ): a window saying "installing DirectX" pops up, followed by the usual launch screen. When I click "Play", the window closes and nothing happens. On steam, I go from "playing aoe2hd" to "online".

​

https://i.redd.it/1mx2rwor93z21.png

Here are the things I have tried:

1. deleting and renaming the launcher
2. re-installing the C++ programs
3. Installing DirectX from the aoe2 game files
4. verifying integrity of my AOE2 game files on Steam
5. reinstalling game approximately 10 times
6. running steam and aoe2hd as administrator

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!! =)