Today I finished a early version of a directx wrapper which prevents the DW startup crash on Windows 8.1 (at least on my PC). It is new so there might be other issues I did not found yet with the game or the wrapper itself (one I know about is a crash when changing resolution in graphics settings) however during test I was able to play through one mission without any apparent issues. I you want to test it, you can find it at
http://www.jiri-dvorak.cz/dangw/index.html