I had both the crysis 1.2 and 1.2.1 take ages for me to get going.
When I started the patchers it sat there saying the program was not responding for 2-3 minutes before it finally decided to go on with the patching.
Same when the patching was done and I was trying to hit the "finish/complete" button, it sat thre for ages saying it was not responding before I could finally do it.
Just thinking that maybe there are some similar issues that are causing trouble for you?
Ofc just having some patience when trying to patch crysis was all that was needed as it just to ages to respond.