We compare vibrational, translational and rotational excitations of CO molecules desorbed by electron impact, and the yield of oxygen and carbon atoms from electron-induced fragmentation of CO molecules for: (1) CO monolayers on bare transition metals [Ru(001) and Pt (111)]; (2) Co monolayers coadsorbed with well-ordered oxygen atoms; (3) weakly bound CO monolayers on expitaxially grown silver films; and (4) CO monolayers decoupled from the metallic substrate by mono-atomic xenon spacer layers. For all but the last system, we find CO molecules which are vibrationally extremely hot. This is explained by the excitation of strongly antibonding multi-electron states which are quenched in the vicinity of the metal surface before enough translational energy is acquired by the nuclei to complete dissociation. For CO/Xe/Ag (111), vibrationally hot CO molecules are missing among the desorbing particles, whereas strong fragment signals persist. Because of the isolating Xe layer, the substrate-adsorbate coupling is too weak to terminate the dissociation reaction which is induced by the electron impact before the rupture of the molecular bond.