Same problem here. I moved to to my old PC and it worked fine. I hope someone can fix it because the game is awesome.

Running the game in Windows 2000 compatibility mode made a difference for me - the text in the menus is still invisible, but the in-game graphics seem ok and the mouse cursor does not jump around the screen anymore. Unfortunately, this mode is no longer directly accessible in the Windows 8 ui; thus, you will have to use Microsoft's Application Compatibility Toolkit. Toying with the more nuanced compatibility fixes offered by this app might be worthwhile, too.

Compatibility Fixes:
CorrectBitmapHeader
CorrectCreateBrushlndirectHatch
CorrectCreatelcon
CorrectCreateSurface
CorrectFarEastFont
DisableAnimation
DisableBoostThread
DisableFilterKeys
DisableNewWMPAINTDispatchlnOLE
DisableSWCursorOnMoveSize
DXPrimaryClipping
DXPrimaryEmulation
EmulateBitmapStride
EmulateCursor
EmulateDirectDrawSync
EmulateDrawText
EmulateGetDeviceCaps
EmulateTextColor
EnlargeGetObjectBufferSize
ForceDefaultSystemPaletteEn tries
GiveupForeground
IgnoreFontQuality
IgnoreHungAppPaint
LoadComcti32Version5
MirrorDriverDrawCursor
NoGdiBatching
NoShadow
PaletteRestore
RemoveInvalidW2KWindowStyles

Compatibility Modes:
256Color
640X480
8And 16BitDXMaxWinMode
8And 16BitGDIRedraw
Disable8And 16BitModes
DisableFadeAnimations
DisableNXHideUI
DisableNXShowUI
DisableThemeMenus
DisableThemes
FontMigration
Layer_Force640x480x8
Layer_ForceDirectDrawEmulation
NullEnvironment
Win2000

Please note, however, that this did not make the game work perfectly - it just fixed the font issues during the game and the problems I had with the mouse cursor... Any suggestions on how to tweak this further are appreciated.

Thanks for the list!
I played around with compatibility settings a bit, and discovered that I only had to activate

Layer_ForceDirectDrawEmulation

compatibility mode to make the game playable, i.e. remove terrible flickering and stuttering.
Other settings I tried (those on your list and some others I tried) don't seem to make any difference.

List of settings not included in your list I tried:

AccelGdipFlush
AlwaysActiveMenus
DirectXTrimTextureFormats
DirectXVersionLie
DisableWindowArrangements
DuplicateHandleFix
ElevateCreateProcess
EmulateSlowCPU
EmulateSorting
EnableLegacyExceptionHandlinginOLE
FailObsoleteShellAPIs
FaultTolerantHeap
FixDisplayChangeRefreshRate
ForceDirectDrawEmulation
ForceDirectDrawWait
ForceDisplayMode
ForceDXSetupSuccess
Force8BitColor
HandleBarPtr
HardwareAudioMixer
HighDpiAware
LoadLibraryCWD
MirrorDriverWithComposition
NoGDIHWAcceleration
NoGhost
NoPaddedBorder
RedirectBDE
RedirectMP3Codec
VirtualRegistry
Win2000SP3VersionLie
Win2000VersionLie
WOWCFEX_DISPMODE256
WRPDIIRegister
WRPMitigation

All those don't seem to do anything - neither good nor bad.

I also have tried DisableW2KOwnerDrawButtonStates, which removed the buttons completely and made it impossible to start or load a game (or do anything else other than stare at the background, actually), and AliasDXDC, which, combined with Layer_ForceDirectDrawEmulation, removes all the graphics completely, leaving only menu buttons. The menu button text shows though. Activating AliasDXDC alone leaves only blackscreen with the mouse cursor on it.

Looks like we're forced to choose between a game without the menu text, or a menu text without the game itself at the moment.

Great jobs guys.....
One thing... the refresh rate of the game is around 6 frames per sec... in win 8 even with the above settings... tested it with fraps.. thus we see the flickering screen etc.

If we can resolve this we may be in luck.

Btw this game uses Direct3D or only DriectDraw?

Can we not just ask gog to add win 8 compatibility to their build?

That's a bit of a misuse of the word 'just'. Gangsters uses a weird combination of directdraw and gdi, in a way that modern computers aren't to fond of. And it does it all in 8 bit, which makes it even worse. Adding windows 8 support isn't a trivial job by any means. :(

Humm I wasn't aware that gog team actively update all their titles with new OS supports.
I would love to learn more about the graphic stuff cause I know a bit of it but my damn ERP job leaves no time for it. :(
Btw Gangsters has smthing special about it :) even in the coding they did for it .. hehe

I have the same probs with the game and win8.

Again another game not working on win 8...starting to be an issue for some of us...add mine to the none working list..

Add me to the list. I can't even get the game to start up.

Whenever I click the game's icon, it just comes up with a text box saying that it didn't exit properly. Forget any form of actually starting the game.

Damn i wasted that USD5.99 to buy this game and knowing that it wasn't built for windows 8!!!!

1) Run regedit.exe
2) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion/AppCompatFlags/Layers
3) You should see an entry for Gangster.exe. Double click it to edit it.
4) Replace the entry currently in it with
"$ DWM8And16BitMitigation 8And16BitTimedPriSync 8And16BitAggregateBlts Layer_ForceDirectDrawEmulation"
(remove the quotes)

Directly run the game from Gangster.exe in the game folder (don't try to launch from the Gog Launcher). No compatibility options are needed. This fix will not interfere with other programs or windows. No need to kill explorer.exe.

640 x 480, 800 x 600 and 1024 x 768 all seem to work fine.

The Menus are still fubar - but the stuttering and mouse movement are fixed.

On my machine, I can see the menus by Alt-Tabbing out of the game and back in - this messes up the display while in menus so that the menu text is no longer hidden.

[My understanding of the problem with menus is that they are being drawn in the wrong order due to a timing issue - the background is overwriting or hiding the text.]

[This is from Windows 8.1 64 bit with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 Graphics card]

Edit: Some grief may be saved by ensuring that "Task Manager|Options|Always on Top" is ticked.