I am running FE in wine under linux. I am not using the steam version but the stardock standalone version, so I am not sure if this helps.
To get the game running under recent wine versions, I had to rename the file SDNXLOverlay.dll in the game folder. Not sure if you have that file too.
I remember to get the game running without that in wine 1.4 if I remember correctly, so using an older wine via playonlinux could be worth a try, too.
Would be great to hear, if this helps.