Ah strange coincidence this, as it just happened to me recently with Battlefield Vietnam. I pretty much did what you did, lowered settings, reinstalled, patched etc, but if none of these worked for me either.

After going through websites, and the EA Support Centre we worked out that it was my graphics card that was not compatible with the game, so in the end i had to fork out a bit of cash for a Geforce FX 5200.

After that it worked perfect!

Perhaps your problem also is in your hardware. What PC specs does your computer have?

P.S. I have a EA account so if you PM me with what u want to know then ill ask them for you.