I am getting exactly the same problems as Black-devil, but I am using a Radeon mobility 9000. It is as if the graphics card is not recognising the alpha in effects. This is despite the 710 mediavp patches.
However, I am getting many other graphical artifacts, as I suspect the graphics card driver to be at fault. I am going to see if I can get some newer ones (probably Omega drivers as my computer has zero support). I will afterwards report if this has had any effect.
EDIT: the new graphics drivers had an effect, and the game works perfectly now. (I'm using the Omeag ATI drivers cersion 3.8.252, which is the last version which works on my old graphics card.)