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Having a critical error with a fresh install. Opened the patcher and got to sign in, all worked. Then hit play game, it flashes and back to the same screen. Windows 8/ drivers are patched.

Launching game
Looking for old natives to clean up...
Unpacking natives to C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.6.4\1.6.4-natives-812016743017059
Launching in C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft
Running C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\bin\javaw.exe -XX:HeapDumpPath=MojangTricksIntelDriversForPerformance_javaw.exe_minecraft.exe.heapdump -Xmx1G -Djava.library.path=C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.6.4\1.6.4-natives-812016743017059 -cp C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\net\sf\jopt-simple\jopt-simple\4.5\jopt-simple-4.5.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\codecjorbis\20101023\codecjorbis-20101023.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\codecwav\20101023\codecwav-20101023.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\libraryjavasound\20101123\libraryjavasound-20101123.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\librarylwjglopenal\20100824\librarylwjglopenal-20100824.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\paulscode\soundsystem\20120107\soundsystem-20120107.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\argo\argo\2.25_fixed\argo-2.25_fixed.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\bouncycastle\bcprov-jdk15on\1.47\bcprov-jdk15on-1.47.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\google\guava\guava\14.0\guava-14.0.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\apache\commons\commons-lang3\3.1\commons-lang3-3.1.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\commons-io\commons-io\2.4\commons-io-2.4.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\net\java\jinput\jinput\2.0.5\jinput-2.0.5.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\net\java\jutils\jutils\1.0.0\jutils-1.0.0.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\com\google\code\gson\gson\2.2.2\gson-2.2.2.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl\2.9.0\lwjgl-2.9.0.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\libraries\org\lwjgl\lwjgl\lwjgl_util\2.9.0\lwjgl_util-2.9.0.jar;C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.6.4\1.6.4.jar net.minecraft.client.main.Main --username olscratch --session token:c72db438864c40c6852f02c66970a57d:2589c6ec584b4e6d845a2aa7046088b5 --version 1.6.4 --gameDir C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft --assetsDir C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\assets
Client> 2013-10-21 22:57:24 [CLIENT] [INFO] Setting user: olscratch
Client> 2013-10-21 22:57:24 [CLIENT] [INFO] (Session ID is token:c72db438864c40c6852f02c66970a57d:2589c6ec584b4e6d845a2aa7046088b5)
Client> java.lang.NullPointerException
Client>  at java.io.Reader.<init>(Unknown Source)
Client>  at java.io.InputStreamReader.<init>(Unknown Source)
Client>  at lb.<init>(SourceFile:15)
Client>  at lb.<clinit>(SourceFile:9)
Client>  at ku.g(SourceFile:37)
Client>  at kr.g(SourceFile:15)
Client>  at la.<clinit>(SourceFile:27)
Client>  at atv.<init>(SourceFile:201)
Client>  at net.minecraft.client.main.Main.main(SourceFile:83)
Client> Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
Client>  at bu.<clinit>(SourceFile:7)
Client>  at yc.v(SourceFile:495)
Client>  at la.a(SourceFile:139)
Client>  at la.c(SourceFile:85)
Client>  at yc.<clinit>(SourceFile:310)
Client>  at aqz.<clinit>(SourceFile:362)
Client>  at la.a(SourceFile:122)
Client>  at la.<clinit>(SourceFile:55)
Client>  at atv.<init>(SourceFile:201)
Client>  at net.minecraft.client.main.Main.main(SourceFile:83)
Client> Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
Client>  at java.io.Reader.<init>(Unknown Source)
Client>  at java.io.InputStreamReader.<init>(Unknown Source)
Client>  at org.apache.commons.io.IOUtils.readLines(IOUtils.java:986)
Client>  at bv.<init>(SourceFile:26)
Client>  at bv.<clinit>(SourceFile:19)
Client>  ... 10 more
Game ended with bad state (exit code 1)
Ignoring visibility rule and showing launcher due to a game crash
Deleting C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.6.4\1.6.4-natives-812016743017059
Couldn't delete C:\Users\Casey!\AppData\Roaming\.minecraft\versions\1.6.4\1.6.4-natives-812016743017059 - scheduling for deletion upon exit

Minecraft does not like exclamation points in the path, so your account name is causing problems.

okay, renamed my user account. still trying to look at the version with the exclamation point, even after editing my profile to look for the right directory, it just greys out the play button.

You'll probably need to reinstall

The problem is your user profile is stored in a directory with !, and the launcher stores stuff in your user profile at %APPDATA%/.minecraft

So unless you migrated the physical storage for your windows user profile, the ! is still in critical paths.
There are ways to migrate your physical storage, but you'll have to search for them. It might be easier just to create a new windows user account