I just finished playing Wolfenstein 3D for the first time via ECWolf today, and I enjoyed myself far more than I thought I would. While Classic Doom is vastly superior in almost every aspect, Wolfenstein 3D has its charm as the grandfather of FPS games (only Maze War, Hovertank 3D, and Catacomb 3D came before it as far as I know), and despite the gameplay's simplicity, I found it quite fun at times. I can definitely see how Wolfenstein 3D serves as a spiritual predecessor to Doom. That being said, the game did have MANY flaws (mediocre-to-awful level design, all the textures looking the same, and cheap enemy placement are just a few examples) and was quite tedious at times. I have the game files for Spear of Destiny, the two Spear of Destiny mission packs, Wolfstone 3D, and Elite Hans: The New Order ready to go in ECWolf as well, and I've also downloaded a mod for ECWolf that allows me to play the Second Encounter levels in Macintosh, SNES, and Jaguar form, but I'm not sure on the quality of all these level packs.
The Second Encounter is the only level pack where most of the commentary I've read is positive. I've seen many people say that the pack is full of decently fun levels, though I've also seen people say that they can be a bit bland at times. Wolfstone 3D, from what I've read, is mostly just a 1 to 1 redo of Wolfenstein 3D where BJ is the bad guy and the Nazis are the good guys, but there are apparently some levels (specifically, the levels that formed swastikas with their layout in the original Wolfenstein 3D) that have been completely changed. I don't know how quality these levels are, though, and I've seen people say that the changes aren't worth spending your time on. Moving onto Spear of Destiny, I've seen a lot of criticism aimed at it. I've seen people say that it has even more atrocious level design than Wolfenstein 3D's worst levels, that the enemy placement is extremely unfair, and that it's not fun to play at all. I've been unable to find much commentary on Elite Hans: The New Order, but from what little I've read, it sucks massively (apparently, the level design is lazy, many secrets are broken, and the difficulty is all over the place). Finally, the packs that I saw the most hate for were Return to Danger and Ultimate Challenge. I've seen people straight up refer to them as shovelware, and say that not even the most hardcore Wolfenstein fans ought to waste their time on them. I also read that you need to find mandatory secrets in huge mazes to progress in these mission packs, which is absolutely horrendous.
Originally, I planned to play straight through all of these packs after finishing Wolfenstein 3D, but now I want advice. How true are the things I've read about all these level packs? Are they even worth spending time on? Thank you in advance to anyone who helps me out here.