Mafwek: Enhanced Edition allows you to modify controls, but if you didn't like original gameplay, it won't help you.
HereForTheBeer: Thanks for that tip. The controls was (were?) the big frustration so I'll give the Enhanced version a go, see if it then morphs into something I like.
Edit: and I must point out that this is almost all on me and not on the games themselves. Maybe if I encountered the games on release and not instead try to go back in game history, it might be a different story. For instance, I bought Crusader: No Remorse and No Regret back in the day, and didn't have any particular trouble at the time with the now-wonky control scheme.
I think we just find newer control schemes more productive. I have a game i got on gog where it uses wasd, or maybe ↑←↓→, but what would be strafe in a modern game became TURN, and, IIRC, it already had mouse look, and that wasn't something you could change. I ragequit in the tutorial, as i can't be bothered to deal with stuff like that.
As for system shock (not sure which i have atm, as i'm in the middle of fixing my gog archive), but it starts out nice and slow, all puzzle like, then suddenly you're being swarmed and attacked by these things and you just don't have time to get a feel for the combat. To top it off, the graphics were so dated that i couldn't tell what it was that attacked me, 'cause the polycount was bare minimum, so i just lost all tolerance for the shennanigans.
But, i can deal with Monster Hunter's shennanigans.