If you receive the following error:

Windows could not start the VMware VirtualCenter Server on Local Computer. For more information, review the System Event Log. If this is a non-Microsoft service, contact the service vendor, and refer to service-specific error code 2.

Here is how to figure out what is going on (as you probably found out, event viewer is useless giving you the following info:

The description for Event ID 1000 from source VMware VirtualCenter Server cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

Failed to intialize VMware VirtualCenter. Shutting down...

the message resource is present but the message is not found in the string/message table

To figure out what is going on, open up the vpxd-1.log file (mine was in the following directory: C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter\Logs)

Towards the bottom, you should see the error. In my case, I found the following error:

2013-01-05T13:23:54.267-06:00 [01912 error 'Default'] SSLStreamImpl::DoClientHandshake (000000000a01aec0) SSL_connect failed. Dumping SSL error queue:
2013-01-05T13:23:54.267-06:00 [01912 error 'Default'] [0] error:0407006A:rsa routines:RSA_padding_check_PKCS1_type_1:block type is not 01
2013-01-05T13:23:54.267-06:00 [01912 error 'Default'] [1] error:04067072:rsa routines:RSA_EAY_PUBLIC_DECRYPT:padding check failed
2013-01-05T13:23:54.267-06:00 [01912 error 'Default'] [2] error:0D0C5006:asn1 encoding routines:ASN1_item_verify:EVP lib
2013-01-05T13:23:54.267-06:00 [01912 error 'Default'] [3] error:14090086:SSL routines:SSL3_GET_SERVER_CERTIFICATE:certificate verify failed
2013-01-05T13:23:54.267-06:00 [01912 error 'HttpConnectionPool-000001'] [ConnectComplete] Connect failed to ; cnx: (null), error: class Vmacore::Ssl::SSLVerifyException(SSL Exception: Verification parameters:
--> PeerThumbprint: 45:9E:FA:36:44:E1:51:9D:03:D6:FA:A3:56:DE:01:91:0D:93:78:C8
--> ExpectedThumbprint:
--> ExpectedPeerName: MYHOST.MYDOMAIN.local
--> The remote host certificate has these problems:
-->
--> * certificate signature failure)
2013-01-05T13:23:54.267-06:00 [01152 error '[SSO][SsoFactory_CreateFacade]'] Unable to create SSO facade: SSL Exception: Verification parameters:
--> PeerThumbprint: 45:9E:FA:36:44:E1:51:9D:03:D6:FA:A3:56:DE:01:91:0D:93:78:C8
--> ExpectedThumbprint:
--> ExpectedPeerName: MYHOST.MYDOMAIN.local
--> The remote host certificate has these problems:
-->
--> * certificate signature failure.
2013-01-05T13:23:54.267-06:00 [01152 error 'vpxdvpxdMain'] [Vpxd::ServerApp::Init] Init failed: Vpx::Common::Sso::SsoFactory_CreateFacade(sslContext, ssoFacadeConstPtr)
--> Backtrace:
--> backtrace[00] rip 000000018018a8ca
--> backtrace[01] rip 0000000180102f28
--> backtrace[02] rip 000000018010423e
--> backtrace[03] rip 000000018008e00b
--> backtrace[04] rip 0000000000405c2c
--> backtrace[05] rip 0000000000426512
--> backtrace[06] rip 000000013ffd0701
--> backtrace[07] rip 000000013ffca51c
--> backtrace[08] rip 00000001401ec92b
--> backtrace[09] rip 000007fefefba82d
--> backtrace[10] rip 000000007765652d
--> backtrace[11] rip 000000007788c521
-->
2013-01-05T13:23:54.267-06:00 [01152 warning 'VpxProfiler'] ServerApp::Init [TotalTime] took 6505 ms
2013-01-05T13:23:54.267-06:00 [01152 error 'Default'] Failed to intialize VMware VirtualCenter. Shutting down...
2013-01-05T13:23:54.267-06:00 [01152 info 'vpxdvpxdSupportManager'] Wrote uptime information
2013-01-05T13:23:59.774-06:00 [01312 warning 'VpxProfiler' opID=SWI-184910ec] VpxUtil_InvokeWithOpId [TotalTime] took 12012 ms
2013-01-05T13:24:11.786-06:00 [01312 warning 'VpxProfiler' opID=SWI-82674fff] VpxUtil_InvokeWithOpId [TotalTime] took 12012 ms
2013-01-05T13:24:23.799-06:00 [01312 warning 'VpxProfiler' opID=SWI-699faf4] VpxUtil_InvokeWithOpId [TotalTime] took 12012 ms
2013-01-05T13:24:35.811-06:00 [01312 warning 'VpxProfiler' opID=SWI-6e861832] VpxUtil_InvokeWithOpId [TotalTime] took 12012 ms
2013-01-05T13:24:47.823-06:00 [01312 warning 'VpxProfiler' opID=SWI-f1537246] VpxUtil_InvokeWithOpId [TotalTime] took 12012 ms
2013-01-05T13:24:48.057-06:00 [01152 info 'Default'] Forcing shutdown of VMware VirtualCenter now

As you can see from the error above, we are having some SSL issues. To fix this issue, you need to replace the SSL certificate for the SSO service with a trusted certificate (either by your own internal CA or an external one).