Reliable OS: Debian is the standard, or try Fedora if you want to get the latest software features
Alternate DE’s: xubuntu is a classic and it’s fast. LXQT is also lightweight but not as modern feeling imo. Debian install disks should let you choose either of those DEs (or some others) when installing
If you already tried proton and it hasn’t worked for the games you want to play, you have my sympathies. However, if that’s not the case, I highly recommend trying it out.
I’ve been running Arch on my main PC for two years and, so far, Steam’s Proton has worked with every game I’ve tried it on.
If you need to install the game using a windows installer like a repack, wine seems to work for that. Then, as long as you can find the game’s exe, you can add it to steam and choose to have it run via proton. And after that it launches just like every other game would.
Even NVIDIAs raytracing has worked for me which is kind of an impressive feat considering how much of a pain NVIDIA graphics can be on Linux sometimes.
Not sure if Cyberpunk 2077 counts as corporate trash. But the main quests are a pretty good story. Combat is fun. There are upgrade trees that are a bit more complicated than CONTROL.
And as for “power fantasy” if being able to solo an entire megacorp army and win isn’t power fantasy idk what is.
There are also lots of side quests that themselves are pretty good stand alone stories.