This game totally deserves better. It's a technical marvel in the things that it does but damn does its performance feel lackluster.
I don't think 30fps is acceptable in 2023 and even then the game has noticeable moments where it can't keep a consistent frame rate.
You got the typical recommendations already, my advice would be to avoid most of the niche distros. I just don't think they offer much over something that is more mainstream, especially for your first foray.
The first distro I ran for any significant length of time was Fedora.