[8] On its release, Billboard described "Coming Up Close" as a "nostalgic rock song" and "contemplative follow-up" to "What About Love" which "incorporates elements of both country and western".

[9] Cash Box considered the song to be a "country-flavored and richly textured mid-tempo track" which has "an airy, evocative ambience that yields to a riveting chorus".

[11] In a review of Welcome Home, Jim Sullivan of The Boston Globe praised "Coming Up Close" as "the best song the wispy-voiced Mann has written".

"[13] L. Kent Wolgamott of the Lincoln Journal Star considered "Coming Up Close" to be a "direct personal song, something most new bands avoid like the plague".

[15] In a retrospective review of the song, Stewart Mason of AllMusic noted the "detail-filled lyrics" that "sound like a Raymond Carver story set to music", and the "haunting hints of emotions" which are "resolved in an equally elliptical but much more direct and yearning chorus".