For its role in "Brothers", "Winter" was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song at the 2010 ceremony. In a preview of "No Line on the Horizon", "Q" called the "Linear" version one of the "instantly striking tracks" while describing Bono's "lyric about a soldier in an unspecified war zone" as "fine". "Rolling Stone" reviewer Brian Hiatt called it a "lovely discarded ballad". The "Los Angeles Times" had a negative impression of the "Brothers" version, labelling it "a snails-paced somber number with some oh-so-serious, look-at-me flashes of rhythm" while noting that it "could have used some of the gospel atmospheres of the act's 2009 effort "No Line on the Horizon"."