Success! I finally got someone at Time Warner who knew what she was talking about. She remoted into my router, asked me about udp vs tcp (no idea), and set my strict firewall settings down to normal.
Nubbie, thanks for your help.
Edit: error message is: "Unable to advertise: Unable to reach game server, make sure your ports are open."
Time Warner Cable Tech Support swears up and down that port 11753 is being forwarded/is open in the router,
Any help with this problem would be appreciated.