I have done everything short of jumping through the 20,000 hoops that are required to actually submit a request to MS for help.

The game loads fine, I played from start to finish without ever even closing down the client.
Absolutely stable

But then I beat the game, and went to try multiplayer
I have read dozens of posts about people's games crashing or minimizing to the desktop when they bring up the multiplayer server screen. my game doesn't crash or anything, but the list is empty. it says "connecting to global server' and then it says that it is connected, and even says the servers are available, but there are none in the list.

Im using dx9.0a
I opened the ports on my router, I even dmz'ed
I read the troubleshooting, and disabled my modem (I have an ethernet and a modem)
I reinstalled
I installed dx9 again
I ran dxdiag and tested the direct play
I even follwed a suggested post that had me copy over dhpnhupnp.dll with the one from dx8.2

Nothing has helped
I even tried to use 'freelancer -s<wolfpack server>'
and 'freelancer -s<lancersreactor server>'

Still nothing will show in the list.

Im getting really frustrated and desperate, any help is appreciated...