I have the same problem.
I searched the web all over and cant find this problem or solution.
The problem is actually " Windows 8 ui style errors"
The windows 8 ui works fine after initial set up, but after a number of changes the styles get corrupted somehow. I will post some screenshots later.
But the start fonts in the start is messed up, all the menus have bade style backgrounds which do not allow you to see the selections until you hover over it with the mouse.
One question I have, because I did not install much. Did you allow and install framework 2.0 and steam? Because I did and I do not see anything else which could have changed this.
Also, I downloaded 2 themes from microsoft, but they should not have changed the ui to have such error.
This is really a pain and obvious bug in the OS programming it needs to be fixed by microsoft, for somereason I cant access their forums atm.