This is not the normal "black screen"issue and I was shocked to eventually find out why. The normal advice of reconfiguring Xorg didn't work. Even booting into "Recovery Mode" did not help.
Here is the short end of the stick that fixed it:
sudo apt-get install mdm mate-desktop-environment
Yes you got it right, mdm and the mate-desktop-environment / gnome were somehow uninstalled. This must be whe........
If Linux Mint 17 or other has no window buttons/controls you can do the following from terminal:
marco --replace&
Sometimes it can be fixed if you go to your themes/appearance and choose a new one but in the case like mine where Compiz is installed but not running/working then that fix will not work and will require the marco command above.
What if you can't type in a terminal Window?
If you close........