"Having to deal with pre-shader work" that you mentioned is a good thing. Without it, games will stutter more. And you always have the option to skip it or disable it entirely.

But otherwise, it's a classic delimma:

Steam personally, I respect GOG offering DRM-free games, but steam does so much good for the Linux community that they've earned my loyalty.

Also Steam lets developers offer their games DRM free, most developers just want DRM if it's an option. Here's a list of DRM free games on Steam.

Is game on Steam? Steam.

Is game not on Steam? Game does not exist.

Life is easy.

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Gog doesn't force gog galaxy on games that don't need it and offers standalone installers.

GOG

Just the hability to have my entire collection in a backup disk I can keep in my drawer, to install and play with no need for an internet connection makes all the difference.

Bonus: no DRM

for convenience 90% Steam. But, some gog games works OOTB with Heroic

steam for new games gog for my old favourites

GOG for offline games, Steam games that are online multiplayer or can benefit from cloud saves.

How do you get gog games to work? Is it all set up or do you need to do something like look for Linux games or set as non steam game or etc?

Lutris because it handles both and more.

I've chosen Steam because I already had most games there before knowing about gog.

However I feel like I'll end up regretting that decision one day 😨

Tough one. I care a lot about game preservation, so I naturally tend to gravitate towards GOG, however I've had trouble getting a few too many games running, while the Steam versions "just work" (with the same version of Proton, etc).
I really tend to make sure that I'm not going to have any issues with the GOG version before buying it nowadays, otherwise I'll get the Steam version.

Are there any good tools for incorporating third party games into Steam, like what Steam ROM Manager does for emulators?

Pre-Shaders are the real Deal thats why i bought Cyberpunk twice.

It ran but stutters were hurting the Performance to much.

For many Games its no problem.

I choose gog

On the one hand, no DRM and competition pushes me towards GOG. On the other hand, my Steam Deck pushes me to Steam. Yes, Heroic Launcher is amazing for Linux gaming, but I've encountered a few games that didn't behave right. Dragon Age: Origin is the biggest offender with the DLC just not activating out of the box on GOG.

I prefer Steam. It has an official Linux client. I use Steam Remote Play quite often, either to play remotely myself, or have someone join my local co-op game.

Valve also pays for Linux devs to help make Linux gaming better:

Griffais says the company is also directly paying more than 100 open-source developers to work on the Proton compatibility layer, the Mesa graphics driver, and Vulkan, among other tasks like Steam for Linux and Chromebooks.

On PC (Linux). I prioritise Steam.

But if the game is much cheaper in other launchers that can be used with Lutris. Like Epic. That doesn't stop me from getting it there instead.

I just go with what's cheapest, I have a massive library on both.