Nothing wrong with it, I spent endless hours playing it. But I saw the arcade version only afterwards, and I went "oooooh, colours!"

The "native" Spectrum games were better IMO. Sir Fred comes to mind. Pentagram, Gunfright, Knight's Lore, Abu Simbel Profanation. These worked with the limitations of the hardware (most notably the colour clash), not against it.

I mean, there even was a Spectrum version of Operation Wolf, and it was kind of atrocious (but still unbelievable that they made it work on such modest hardware!)

Funny you mentioned Operation Wolf, this is a game I really like and still play in the emulator from time to time.

Definitely not the same without the light gun :(

It didn't magically make the Spectrum have more colors or better sound, like the arcade game had.

Maybe but I did "waste" countless hours with it.