Preparing to launch...

I'm trying to play Civ, and it's not working. I played it fine earlier this same day, my computer hasn't crashed, and all my other Steam games seem to be working perfectly.

All that's happening is, in a different Steam window, it says "Preparing to launch Sid Meier's Civilization V..." That's it, word for word. Does anyone know whats wrong, and how to fix it?

EDIT: After 3 or 4 times restarting my computer, it's working again.

It was probably a problem with steam, steam won't say a thing while it halts game action for 30+ minutes. Even if 'offline', it will secretly try to update stuff. Everytime civ hasn't launched it was because of steam.

Turn off your internet and try it.
As Brok mentioned even in offline mode it will try to update which is annoying when it takes 10 times as long to update steam as it does to actually start the game.

This happens to my computer. Usually when I start Civ, the launcher immediately appears after a second of "Preparing to Launch..." but if that text box hangs for more than 2-3 seconds it won't ever actually get to the launcher so I have to force Steam (which is "Not Responding" by this time) to quit and re-open it. Upon re-opening, Civ starts immediately.

No idea what the underlying problem is, but I do know what it's like to be sitting there waiting to get the game going.