Here's a hack that worked:
go to application -> controllers -> DashboardController.class.php
at line 234, comment out the "IF" statement and replace it with "if(false){" so it will just bypass that conditional statement.
//if (user_config_option("overviewAsList")){
if(false){
Save that and the widget view returns.
Obviously, this is not fixing the problem the right way. It's a hack, but I think this is a bug and I don't know the code at all to fix it right.