When comparing WINE vs VMWare player, the Slant community recommends WINE for most people. In the question“What are the best tools for running Windows games on Linux?” WINE is ranked 3rd while VMWare player is ranked 5th.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Open source
Pro Powerful
Does not emulate, rather it translates Windows-specific system calls.
Pro Has many front-ends (kinda)
Like Play-on-Linux, Lutris, Winetricks.
Pro 3D graphic support
Not sure about games but WebGL works ok.
Pro Works well and fast with Windows host and Linux guest
Pro Microsoft VM support
Also supports Microsoft Virtual Server virtual machines or Microsoft Virtual PC virtual machines.
Pro User friendly
Somewhat more user friendly than VirtualBox.
Cons
Con Wine tends to favor some hardware over others
Tends to work better with nVidia graphics on an Intel CPU, even when an AMD CPU or graphics chip would normally perform better than the given equivalent part from Intel/nVidia.
Con Needs additional script sometimes
This can be done automatically by using PlayOnLinux.
Con Not open source
Which means having to install their intrusive tools manually on guest linux vms.