Have similar problems plus one other.
EU servers haven't been forced to patch yet (happening tomorrow sometime) but ISXEQ2 forced a patch when the old version was working fine still..
Should it force a patch if the current exe is still working?
Anyhow , when it tries to load ISXEQ2 (and fails) the screen goes dark , everything that was light/white goes black and the textures for lights/torches etc show as the texture boxes , *edit* : Using ATi card here with latest drivers.