yes in fact it wait for the authentification server, after the cinematic, sometimes you could think its crashed but you have to wait 5 good minutes for the menu to launch.

Also post your specs and what you're running in the background. You might have something running that's hogging resources. I've not had any problems with loading the game up at all yet, but my machine is pretty beefy:

Operating System: Windows XP, Version 5.1.2600
Processor: Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
Memory: 4.00 GB DDR2 Corsair Dominator
Video Card: EVGA 896-P3-1255-AR GeForce GTX 260
Sound Card: Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio -Ditgal/Optical

also, the game was working fine for me until today when the host of an online game quit bc no one else could join.  nothing else has changed so i am not sure what could be wrong.

There is an update check at startup, but due to the server load issues (which we're trying to resolve right now) it may time out. If it does, the game should continue on after two minutes at most. Single player or LAN should work without further pauses, but the multiplayer menus will behave similarly if the servers are loaded.

also check your firewalls.  I was getting a lockup after the intro but it was because my firewall was asking for permission to let DG access the internet but I couldnt see it because the game was in the way.  I couldnt minimize because the game was locked up trying to get to the server.  I eventually got the permission box to the front and now it works fine.