After having the same issue and doing a LOT of searching, the problem seems to be Origin and version 1.69. From what I have read, the ONLY way to resolve the problem is to revert back to 1.67 with a "super patch" that someone released. This is impossible for those of us who tried the uninstall/reinstall route and wound up with all electronic-only games that live in Origin. Version 1.69 married The Sims to Origin, and they cannot be separated. So, if you own the disks, you can do the uninstall/reinstall, update, then use the super path to go back to 1.67 and it should work.
Otherwise? You're screwed. I'm weighing the pros and * of spending ~$200 to buy the game and all the EPs on disks from Amazon.
Oh, and by the way? This is all for PC only. If you're on a mac, especially a high end, late model Macbook Pro with the best graphics cards out there, the game isn't supported. Funny how that works, huh? You spend several thousand dollars with the hope that your computer won't implode when you try to play the Sims, and you learn it doesn't work. Thankfully, there's bootcamp for that. But then you run into the Origin/v1.69 problem. This is my story.
