After pressing play, the game loaded for a fraction of a second and then crashed (the open window and close window compiz animation can be seen). The terminal output was the following:

Game update: AppID 204060 "Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP", ProcID 10032, IP 0.0.0.0:0
Setting breakpad minidump AppID = 204060
Steam_SetMinidumpSteamID:  Caching Steam ID:  76561198018913745 [API loaded no]
saving roaming config store to 'sharedconfig.vdf'
roaming config store 2 saved successfully
X Error of failed request:  BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)
  Major opcode of failed request:  150 (XFree86-VidModeExtension)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  10 (XF86VidModeSwitchToMode)
  Value in failed request:  0x27e
  Serial number of failed request:  141
  Current serial number in output stream:  143

(steam:9951): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_widget_get_visible: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed

(steam:9951): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_widget_set_visible: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed

(steam:9951): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_widget_set_visible: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed

(steam:9951): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: invalid uninstantiatable type `(null)' in cast to `GObject'

(steam:9951): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_unref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Game removed: AppID 204060 "Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP", ProcID 10036 

Since the output mentioned XF86VidModeSwitchToMode, I tried changing my resolution. Sure enough, using the highest resolution available, 1440x900 (which is by far not supported by my 15" 4:3 CRT monitor), the game ran perfectly. I was then able to tweak the resolution to the one I use and so far it runs flawlessly.
I'm not sure whether this bug belongs to the game (not appropriately detecting the resolution in use), the nVidia drivers (not appropriately detecting the monitor's supported resolutions) or xrandr.
This is my Hardware Info:

Processor Information:
    Vendor:  AuthenticAMD
    Speed: 3300 Mhz
    4 logical processors
    4 physical processors
    HyperThreading:  Unsupported
    FCMOV:  Supported
    SSE2:  Supported
    SSE3:  Supported
    SSSE3:  Supported
    SSE4a:  Supported
    SSE41:  Unsupported
    SSE42:  Unsupported

Network Information:
    Network Speed:  

Operating System Version:
    Ubuntu 12.10 (32 bit)
    Kernel Name:  Linux
    Kernel Version:  3.5.0-19-generic
    X Server vendor:  The X.Org Foundation
    X Server release:  11300000

Video Card:
    Driver:  NVIDIA Corporation GeForce 210/PCIe/SSE2/3DNOW!

    Driver Version:  3.3.0 NVIDIA 310.19
    Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
    Monitor Refresh Rate: 60 Hz
    VendorID:  0x10de
    DeviceID:  0xa65
    Number of Monitors:  1
    Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
    Primary Display Resolution:  1280 x 960
    Desktop Resolution: 1280 x 960
    Primary Display Size: 12,20" x 9,06"  (15,20" diag)
                                            31,0cm x 23,0cm  (38,6cm diag)
    Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
    Primary VRAM: 1024 MB
    Supported MSAA Modes:  2x 4x 8x 16x 

Sound card:
    Audio device: Realtek ALC887-VD

Memory:
    RAM:  4034 Mb

Miscellaneous:
    UI Language:  English
    LANG:  es_AR.UTF-8
    Microphone:  Not set
    Total Hard Disk Space Available:  430904 Mb
    Largest Free Hard Disk Block:  335462 Mb

Installed software:

Recent Failure Reports: