http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26835
--- Comment #148 from mavericfso@gmail.com 2011-05-23 20:13:04 CDT --- (In reply to comment #136)
(In reply to comment #135)
This would be because steam is signing the client/server dlls on windows, and failing to do so in wine. Because they're not signed in wine, the game wont load. It also wont load DLLs signed for a different system fingerprint. This much can be verified by simply inspecting any two working windows installations and noting that the DLLs differ - by a digital signature. So why are people trying to come up with "they're not downloading right because of NTFS voodoo!" nonsense? The filesystem likely has something to do with the fingerprinting method, hence the NTFS issues, but wine has never been able to properly run their signature routine on any system. This was eventually fixed for L4D2, but apparently valve has changed their method enough that it's not playing nice with wine again.
Here's the same issue occuring with an earlier version of the DRM on left4dead2: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1038956
Are Portal 2 and L4D2 the only games that do this? I have several games on steam that I will play on windows 7, windows XP, and kubuntu under wine. If they are signed to the system they were installed under, and will only play under that system, I shouldn't be able to play them, and I can. Amnesia: The Dark Descent was installed under XP, plays under kubuntu wine, and under win7.
One thing I did forget to mention about my system in my previous comment is that all games (with the exception of Portal 2) were installed back when my computer ran Windows XP Home 32 bit, which is presently no longer installed on my computer whatsoever. (current OS are as previously mentioned, Win 7 Ult 64bit, and Kubuntu 11.04 64bit)