Club Ninja sold more than 175,000 copies, falling well short of gold status again, and because of its high cost, Columbia Records executives deemed it a commercial failure.

Lanier was replaced temporarily by Tommy Zvoncheck, who'd previously been keyboardist for Aldo Nova's live band, for a Japanese tour by Public Image Ltd. and had already contributed to the initial recordings of Blue Öyster Cult's 1988 concept album Imaginos.

Edwin Pouncey, reviewing the album for Sounds, gave it a five-star rating, describing it as "a seemingly leaden slab of AOR which suddenly turns into gold in your hands", praising Sandy Pearlman's production.

[7] Modern reviews are quite negative, with AllMusic calling Club Ninja a testimony of "Blue Öyster Cult's gradual disintegration" and "decline into musical anonymity".

[5] Canadian journalist Martin Popoff judged the album the "least attached to the BÖC body of work, painfully constructed and baffling in its bad taste", showing a band struggling to update their sound to more "commercial avenues" without achieving the expected radio-friendly results.