I finished the Linux port of this nice little game and had a blast.
Sure the whole insta-death thing is frustrating at times, but the fast action loaded gameplay with those ridiculously gory and oldschool visuals got me hooked. I'm still collecting the last masks and letters.
The final boss was mean but the moment you realize how to beat him/them he is done really fast and the bonus missions were quite nice. I wished there would be a bigger variety of missions like the ones after the final boss, but I haven't found any mods.
The only downside for me is the annoying music, I wished they'd implemented some nice 8 bit chiptunes or metal/hard rock instead of this techno stuff, but whatever.
This game gives many nods to one of my favourite games from this era "Dreamweb", I highly recommend this one, although it's way darker/depressing and less action packed.
The one thing that it lacks is a level editor (and therefore enabling community support) like the second part has, because although the original missions are great and have a replay value indeed, they aren't that many.