Having run into this limitation of 10.2 before (and getting desperate), i use the "xpdf" code to convert the file to a PNG and then import the PNG:
RunProcess[{"pdftopng.exe", "-r", requestedDPI, yourFileName, outFileName}]
newImage = Import[outFileName];
This can be a little faster than the built in function for importing the PDF - depending on the PDF.
Cheers,
Mark
