Let me start by saying I think Linux Mint is one of the top 5 greatest distros of all time. It is an absolutely essential starting point for many people and their work is responsible for much of the user-friendliness you see in the world of Linux today. It is stable, has a nice aesthetic, “just works”, and doesn’t make you update constantly.
These things are great but they are the very things that make Linux Mint unsuited for online gaming. Is this a bad thing? No!! It’s just not a distro made for gaming purposes. It’s like showing up to a monster truck drag race in a Ferrari. I cannot count on my two hands how many times I have provided support to a user, to find their issue was outdated libraries due to using Linux Mint. It happens all the time. Go look at any game on ProtonDB that is currently working, and you’ll find 1-2 “not working” reports and they are always on either Debian on Mint.
I understand why we see it so often, because Linux Mint is awesome and users want to play their games on it. But if I suggested Hell Let Loose to a friend using Linux Mint right now, the first distro suggested for gaming in our FAQ, he wouldn’t be able to play because of his choice of distro. Making rolling distros look like a fortress in 2023 and suggesting Mint for gaming will only set new Linux users up for disappointment.
As others have been saying Mint can be used for gaming. Older packages may make playing online more difficult though for sure. Using the Steam Flatpak will probably resolve this but older kernel versions likely leave performance on the table as well.
However, I do think we should look at Mint a bit differently. Mint and the Cinnamon desktop isn’t really a replacement for Windows 10. It should be viewed as more of a replacement for Windows 7. Keep in mind I am not nearly as familiar with Mint/Cinnamon as I am with GNOME, KDE, XFCE, and even Pantheon.
I installed Linux Mint for my grandfather on an old Lenovo laptop where the Win7 install on his HDD was corrupted. Instead of bothering to get a Win7 installer I just put Mint on there to see how it would do. Immediately it felt reminiscent to me of XP and 7. For users with more Windows experience, but don’t want to deal with Microsoft, I think Mint should be their go to. I was impressed with the GUI tools available. It was the first time in years where I didn’t feel the need to open the terminal.
Edit: punctuation
From what I remember, last I’d looked at wife’s machine, you can run a relatively recent kernel selecting from the software updater program (one of the menu items lists kernels).
Indeed, you can jump onto a 6.2 kernel from Update Manager in a few clicks.