Still no solution? Bummer. I also found that running the game in Bootcamp Windows on the same Macbook Pro works fine. So, it appears that we have a very specific hardware/OS combination problem - OS X on Macbooks. I haven't seen any forums where people are having problems on iMacs, just Macbooks. And I know it's not a pure hardware issue, because it works just fine in Windows on the same hardware.
Very strange.