Chase HQ sluggish and overhyped? It's one of the faster racers on the CPC!
I actually enjoyed Nemesis and Green Beret. I never really compared to other machines playing as a kid. The way I looked at it, I was paying a few quid for a copy of an arcade game that I didn't have to put in 10p coins every time I wanted to play. And Green Beret was quite playable. Nemesis was was difficult but that's not exactly straying from it's arcade counterpart. I got as far as level 2 and graphically, it's definitely not the worst.
Gotta put age into consideration here. Early to mid 87, coders were still getting to grips with the machine, there weren't many graphics marvels for the Amstrad around that time! You had rare gems in the likes of Gryzor and Renegade, but most of the more popular stuff came after this time period.
Granted, time hasn't aged a lot of Amstrad games well, but I won't lie, I killed many hours playing Nemesis just TRYING to get past level 2!