Black screen of death installing games?

I took a long involuntary hiatus from warezing pc games, but recently I got back into it big time and man, the game has changed! Hehe. PC games have really improved big time, but it's not all good news. Steam is a real pain in the ass. Steam games give me more coaster downloads than the rest combined.

Another change I've noticed is the "inescapable black window of death." I don't think it's a frozen system, because I've seen my share of those, and the usual clues (sound & video glitches/hiccups) aren't there. But it might be. Basically, with some games, when I install and run them, I get a black window that takes over the monitor, but doesn't seem to ever go anywhere. ArmaA 2 is the latest culprit. Can't CTRL-ALT-DEL out of it, can't ALT-TAB out of it (didn't try CTRL-SHIFT-ESC because I just learned about that one a few minutes ago). But it doesn't look like a system lock - my second monitor keeps on displaying its windows just fine. It's like someone hacked W7 so the key combos don't get you anywhere anymore, is all.

It's getting old having to hard reboot with the power button every time a game does this (about 4 times in the last week: Arma2, Dead Island, Just Cause 2). Any tips? An app designed to kill frozen game windows, or something? I'd like some way to confirm whether what I'm seeing is a frozen OS, or just a rogue game window. And some way to avoid cutting the power to my system every time a game does this, of course.

It just occurred to me to leave an MP3 playing while I try to run these games, that would be an easy way to check. In fact, I think I did leave an MP3 playing through the experience once, and the music played without a hitch, right up until I had to press the power button in frustration. So now I'm pretty sure it isn't necessarily an OS freeze, though it might behoove to check on a case-by-case basis.

So, any advice?