Does anyone know if VMWare Workstation 8.0.2 can be installed (and will work) on a Windows 8.1 host?
Try to install it and in case it doesn't run , try to use the compatibility mode in Windows 8.1
Windows 8 was not officially supported as a Host OS until VMware Workstation 9 was released however the VMware Workstation 8.0.5 release did address some Windows 8 issues both as Host or Guest.
The fact that you'er using Windows 8.1 as a Host may be an issue however it doesn't hurt to try and use the Latest VMware Workstation 8.x release which is 8.0.6.
Also keep in mind that the latest Linux release are not officially supported under VMware Workstation 8.x and may have issues that require third-party patches to get VMware Tools to work properly.
That said, IMO if you need to run the latest of any OSes as VM's under Windows 8.1 then you should use the latest release of VMware Workstation, which is 10.1.