I haven't played katana zero, but was assuming it would be about as fast paced as hotline miami, which despite having similar health mechanics (admittedly, you can suffer fewer hits from ranged based on RNG) felt a lot better. I think it's mostly an issue of the controls, but lack some of the professional game development terminology to put it into words. The fact that the only real way to get past many obstacles is by hacking lights which doesn't give enough time to actually sneak up on anyone also contributes to a poor feeling, especially as it seems energy only refreshes on a new level. Adding a quick restart would also be nice, as I found myself having to chase down enemies in an elaborate suicide ploy just so I could actually try again!
Hotline Miami is an instant-death title, meaning there is no health system, you die with one hit, so I'm unsure about what you mean by similar health mechanics. Also neither Hotline Miami nor Memory Shift are based on RNG. About the lights, they are not the only way by far, I finished 100% of the game without using lights. Also, there IS a restart button in the pause menu. I feel like this is just not the kind of game for you, not a problem with the controls but rather not being used to playing this kind of games, which is fine, not everyone can like it. I say that because I had people test it and was told that the controls are good.
You can survive a shot in certain circumstances. It's *technically* deterministic but effectively random from a player perspective. One of the big things I ran into with the controls was dropping down platforms fast enough to not get caught, although that may just be because in most of the games like this I've played, there's no crouch, so no need to require down+jump to traverse. Either way, just my 2 cents