That is rather suspicious. Did you test if wine-1.8 actually works for you? There have been plenty of commits between 1.8 and 1.8.3 that you would need to test it. With that said those very frst few related commits post wine-1.8 are not in wine-1.8.3. Do you know if the game uses any Microsoft Visual C++ Redistrib?

Quick game chooses a level randomly.

did have a look myself:
running the game with WINEDEBUG=+process shows:

trace:process:create_process_impl app (null) cmdline L"binaries\\landgen /generate data\\land.dat .\\\\data\\level\\-FARM -1808141567 16486 50 0 24"

but land.dat doesn't get modified.
google [url=http://worms2d.info/Landgen_usage_(Worms_2)]shows[/url] that the parameters for landgen are missing the path to the water sprites.

calling landgen directly with correct parameters (from main worms dir)
and it works:

$ wine binaries/landgen.exe /generate data\\land.dat .\\data\\level\\-FARM .\\data\\water\\blue -1808141567 16486 50 0 24
$ strings Data/land.dat | tail -n 2
.\data\level\-FARM
.\data\water\blue

launching worms2.exe now works

next question: why is frontend.exe invoking landgen.exe incorrectly

this looks suspicious:

trace:file:GetShortPathNameA ".\\\\data\\water\\Yellow"
trace:file:GetShortPathNameW L".\\\\data\\water\\Yellow"
trace:file:GetShortPathNameW not found!

//edit: simple patch: https://bugs.winehq.org/attachment.cgi?id=55311

Yes, it should. All of those commits eventually made wine-1.9.0. They need to be called something. The stable branch (1.8.x) is a snapshot of wine-1.8 with only hand-picked commits taken from the dev branch. The very next few commits right after wine-1.8 were not selected for the stable branch, and conversely not in 1.8.3. They also touched some of the Wine msvcp files. If the game uses MS VC++ Redistrib, it does (it's even in the bug title), then that very well may be the change in behavior.

Or maybe not? No idea why the "working version" still crashed for you.

I see that immi101 found the actual root cause and submitted a fix. Nice!

part of the c/c++ runtime code usually gets statically linked into the executable. You need to look at the actually loaded modules to see if any msvc*.dll gets loaded. In this case that is not happening.
So wine's mvsc*.dlls don't have anything to do with the error message.

Game: Deadly Premonition Director's Cut
Installer MD5s:
7beb3456cd4a44f6a719b96e33b7d412 setup_deadly_premonition_directors_cut_2.1.0.6-1.bin
2112ca296efa304c8ebf9eaf56406b71 setup_deadly_premonition_directors_cut_2.1.0.6-2.bin
71c93e2cc21b0ebab1da98e327cfc141 setup_deadly_premonition_directors_cut_2.1.0.6.exe
WineHQ AppDB link: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=15819

Distro: Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon 64-bit
Kernel version: 4.4.0-71
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750Ti
Graphics driver & version: Proprietary 378.13
Wine version(s) tested: Wine 3.0

Install notes: Requires devenum, quartz, wmp9, xact
Let it install PhysX when it asks but decline DirectX

As per the report on WineHQ's AppDB, you need to do the following to get videos playing properly:

- Get a native version of qedit.dll (this can be acquired from dxnt.cab in the DirectX feb2010 installer - directx_feb2010_redist.exe) and place it inside the prefix under c:\windows\system32
Add an override for qedit (native,builtin)
Then run "regsvr32 qedit"

- Two videos need to be converted using ffmpeg or they won't play properly. Open a terminal inside the game's updata/movie directory and run these two commands then replace the old videos with the newly created versions:

ffmpeg -i add01_us.wmv -vcodec wmv2 -qscale:v 2 add01_us_NEW.wmv
ffmpeg -i AdvD_US.wmv -vcodec wmv2 -qscale:v 2 AdvD_US_NEW.wmv

Additionally, if you want to use DPFix, you need to add an override for "d3d9" (native/builtin) and install native versions of d3dx9_42 and d3dcompiler_42. There only seems to be an install script for d3dx9_42 however these can both be installed in POL by installing dxfullsetup, or its equivalent in Winetricks.

Keep in mind that installing native libraries in bulk rather than selectively installing them may have negative side effects though: in a previous version of Wine I got dpfix working by installing dxfullsetup, but after doing this I found that the game started suffering from very long loading times. It might be better to extract the libraries from the DirectX redistributable & install them into the prefix manually (just extract them to c:\windows\system32 then add "native,builtin" overrides for them in winecfg).

Start the game from/create shortcut for "DP.exe /fullscreen"
Use DPLauncher.exe to configure.
How well does it run: Almost perfect
Details: This game seems to run much better in Wine than on Windows, for the most part. Much better loading times and seems quite stable compared to Windows too (I did encounter one crash, but I couldn't reproduce it & this game is known for crashing a lot on Windows anyway).

Unless you enable borderless windowed mode DPFix only seems to work at either the game's original resolution (1280x720) or the full display resolution, otherwise it will crash. In addition AA seems to have a greater performance impact in Wine... nothing major though.

Wine wrapper
I have put together a Linux Wine wrapper for this game. For more information, see the release thread in the game's forum: https://www.gog.com/forum/deadly_premonition_directors_cut/deadly_premonition_for_linux

Thanks for the explanation.

If it's the Same as Steam's GOTY then it'll run, did the whole first chapter without a problem

Game: Driftmoon
Installer MD5s:
a94c97a54acff758cbd2766df62e7219 setup_driftmoon_2.0.0.6.exe
461ea0552869fcb67a2e1b645d3918e1 patch_driftmoon_2.0.3.10.exe
WineHQ AppDB link: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=14277
CodeWeavers link: https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/driftmoon

Distro: Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon 64-bit
Kernel version: 4.4.0-34
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 750Ti
Graphics driver & version: Proprietary 367.35
Wine version(s) tested: Wine Staging 1.9.16 via PlayOnLinux, CrossOver 15.2.0

Install notes: Just install & play.
If using PlayOnLinux, start the game from/create shortcut for "Driftmoon.exe"
How well does it run: Perfect
Details: Have played for a while, no problems so far. Tested with virtual desktop and CSMT enabled.

Any luck with this? Are you able to replicate with a similar messy prefix?

Game: Outlaws + A Handful of Missions
Installer MD5: 1f814c80c8a0ca71a89edb5aa685d6c3 setup_outlaws_2.0_(18590).exe
WineHQ AppDB link: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=1721
CodeWeavers link: https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/outlaws

Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit
Kernel version: 4.13.0-32
Graphics card: AMD RX 480 8GB
Graphics driver & version: Open source, with Mesa 17.3.2 from Padoka's stable Mesa PPA
Wine version(s) tested: Wine 3.0 (with CSMT and virtual desktop enabled)

Install notes: Requires an override for winmm (native, builtin) in order for music playback to work and native dsound to prevent the game from freezing when changing certain music tracks (I also disabled winegstreamer just in case, since that also causes similar issues in other games & disabling it didn't cause anything to break).
Run the game from/create a shortcut for olwin.exe
Configure display resolution etc. by running "nglide_config.exe" - I recommend setting it to use desktop resolution & 4:3 aspect ratio so it doesn't stretch on widescreen displays.
How well does it run: Perfect
Details: No sign of any problems, however garbage may briefly be displayed when quitting the game.

Wine wrapper
I have put together a Linux Wine wrapper for this game. For more information, see the release thread in the game's forum: https://www.gog.com/forum/outlaws_a_handful_of_missions/outlaws_for_linux