It is an enjoyable collection of Steve's clichés that works pretty well live, but the repetitiveness grates a bit.
You pretty much summed up all the essential stuff there; granted, I really like the song and while Blaze did good job with it, Bruce's more elaborate style of delivery and overall, the intensity of the live performance by the whole band really improves the song a lot and brings the story to life much better. The studio recording isn't bad, but the contrast to the live performances is rather notable, even in Maiden standards.
While definitely not one of absolutely strongest Maiden efforts out there, it's more or less outstanding live value makes it a bit special than you'd expect if you take a "tabula rasa" approach to it. It's one of the few songs that
could replace even FOTD if they ever dropped it - The Clansman isn't quite as big song, obviously, but it could definitely serve a similar purpose in the set rather well. Another cool approach would be to throw it into the encore to play sort of a similar role that Blood Brothers did in 2016-17.
Alas, I didn't intend to make this too much of a setlist fantasy thing, I'm merely underlining the rather special qualities of the song, despite it being lacking one at the same time. And it's clearly a very fun one for them to play!