That was very interesting to me.
Give it time, WSL support for graphics is in preview: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/gui-a...
[1]: https://reactos.org/
Edit: I also think it would have made a lot of sense for Valve to invest in getting ReactOS running on their Steam Deck hardware, so they could use that instead of Linux. They're clearly a Windows-first shop, and ReactOS is modeled on NT right down to the kernel. Having a Unix-like OS running underneath, when one really just wants to run Windows code, adds an extra translation layer and impedance mismatches that might even be user-visible.
Also, Valve's interest in GNU/Linux is broader than just Deck.
ReactOS is Windows APIs running on the from-scratch ReactOS kernel that is not very good.
The ReactOS project is not the source for most of the APIs a game is going to use. Many of the come from WINE.
Using ReactOS instead of WINE on Linux makes little sense at this point. It would certainly be a lot more expense and time to create a commercial quality product. Most of the work creating API support to WINE / Proton is portable to ReactOS of the kernel ever gets there.
To me it seems like cutting the compatibility arm is worth the price of having to keep a shitty, inconsistent behavior.
Apple has nailed it so well (don't make it backward compatible) for the last decade afterall, since Apple realized one the internet is so much better and source code management (and repository, backup, disaster recovery) became more accessible so that the cost of port became much lower.
It's a constant issue around me. I know people still keeping 10.6 Macs and sweating profusely at the idea that one day they'll stop working, as the tools they use haven't been ported upwards (because most often the developer of the proprietary app is dead) and will stop too ; imagine an artist whose favorite signature brand of crayons closes door.
The ideal solution would be to have a compatibility shim (like Wine) to provide the old behavior while being able to make the native behavior more consistent.
WINE is an open-source project that explicitly wants to run as much Windows software as accurately as possible on non-Windows systems. If something's broken, anyone can fix it.
This isn't true for the proprietary software that is Windows and C&C, albeit C&C Remastered is partially source-available now, so that could improve matters somewhat.
But all in all, I'd say go with OpenRA. My friend and I played it for a couple of weeks and we scratched the itch of the original games, with none of the hardships and a bevy of wonderful changes to the core gameplay.