I’ve had better luck using the Flatpak version of Steam than either the repo version or downloaded from Steam. On 22.04 I could not get the Gnome launcher to work at all for either and had to use the terminal. No issues using the Flatpak version. It also works with Proton-Up, which is also available as a Flatpak.

As for your issue specifically, you could look at the logs, but the only way I know to do that is via the Terminal, and you mentioned you don’t want to do that.

Can't comment on the cause, but I've found a workaround for this by launching steam from the terminal. I suppose that the gnome launcher calls a different version or uses some specific parameters.

I'll check it when I'm less lazy (hmmm)