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 I cannot count on my two hands how many times I have provided support to a user, to find their issue was outdated libraries due to using Linux Mint.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.
It’s just sad that IMO, in terms of general usage, Cinnamon kicks the shit out of KDE. Every single time I’ve used KDE for general computing stuff I’ve come away pretty annoyed at the bugs. However, KDE is so far ahead of almost everything else in terms of gaming features and functionality (Wayland and toggle-able compositor in X11 to name a few) that if you have a gaming desktop, you’re almost forced to use it.
This is why Linux really is the “illusion of choice”. Yeah you have all of these DE choices and, surprise, all of them except for KDE are missing basic features for gaming.