Tried the first Bioshock game (via Steam) the other day and was greeted with this error message:

bioshock.exe has stopped working

The first thread I found of the problem (link) hinted of a problem related to sound, and the -nosound switch got me into the game as well. Playing without sound is kind of lame as noted further down the thread. The tip of enabling "Stereo Mix" in the recording settings was not possible because such a device did not exist.

Another post (link) explained quite a few steps to follow on page 2 using both compatibility mode and manual settings, but I really did not want to go through them. A few answers bellow it said "plug in a microphone". I did and the game actually worked!