Linux server is perfect because there is huge commercial demand for it. Linux desktop has problems because there is almost no commercial demand for it. Good things require money because effort isn't free.

ChromeOS is a great demonstration of this. A polished, solid, very good desktop experience based on Linux because a large company has a vested interest in its success.

The Linux desktop is perfect for some goals and situations, this however, has nothing to do with that. Having issues while running a game on a platform it was not written for says nothing about the quality of Linux as a Desktop OS.

Being a sysadmin for 15 years and a Linux desktop user for 18+ years, I can say that the requirements are vastly different after a certain point in the OS.

The crux is making users do everything they need without accessing the parts they shouldn't.

In the 90's that situation was flipped: it was the desktop side that was stronger and the server side weaker. This was mainly because it was a bunch of hackers making the system they wanted for themselves. But then businesses started being built on Linux pouring money into server-side development (adding features, fixing bugs, improving performance etc.) and many of the hobbyists decided it was time to get paid for their efforts. So you end up where we are today.

Personally I've had less issues with the Linux desktop (KDE) than with the Windows desktop (outside of course of dumb things I did myself, like messing with GPU setups, or removing a vital library for rendering).