Seriously though. Seen people install Mint, and run non-Linux games through steam with no issues. I had to troubleshoot for about 8 hours so kind of make them run.
Hardware is a big factor in this. Mint in particular is a stable distro based on the ubuntu LTS so it's slow to get new kernels and you need a ppa to get a fresher mesa install and this is essential for newer amd hardware. Conversely if you're on a rolling bleeding edge distro and you rely on nvidia and their closed drivers then you're often one update away from breaking them.
A few days ago there was a video from a relatively known Youtuber on here I think that sparked the idea to try to make the switch again. Mainly because I have experience with Mint and he showed how it "just works", even with notoriously bad nvidia drivers, which I also need.
After I switched go the flatpak version of steam and changed the drive from NTFS to ext4 it works. I did both at the same time so I'm not sure which ended up fixing it or if both is necessary
Since you are not telling me the issue I cant give you what might have went wrong. You might have learned from that.
One advice, nobody will like linux who painstakingly has to play catchup on the terminal on a pre-baked OS.
All the distros I ever cycled through, I always had issues with pre-baked systems. There are always these little things you expect that does not end up happening even if you sweat blood. Then you start looking and you find out that nobody ever had this and there is no documentation whatsoever.
The only antidote aganist that if you are in control and if it is documented. I only ever liked linux in the advanced form.