"Long Hard Road Out of Hell" received mixed reviews from music critics; some found it heartfelt while others felt it was too indistinct from other Marilyn Manson songs.

Commentators noted that the track encapsulated the evolution of the band's sound from the industrial music of Antichrist Superstar (1996) to the glam rock of Mechanical Animals (1998).

[2] "Long Hard Road Out of Hell" features backing vocals from Kelli Ali, the front-woman of British trip hop band Sneaker Pimps.

[1] The track shares its title with Manson's autobiography, The Long Hard Road Out of Hell (1998),[7] and was included on the band's greatest hits album, Lest We Forget: The Best Of (2004).

[10] The title of the song is a reference to John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667),[11] wherein Satan says: "long is the way/ And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.

[2] Alec Chillingworth of Metal Hammer saw the track as similar to the singles from Antichrist Superstar only more subdued, in the vein of the band's subsequent album Mechanical Animals (1998).

[13] PopMatters's Lance Teegarden felt that the tracks' "layered buzzsaw guitar riffs" and Manson's shout-like vocal performance on the chorus made "Long Hard Road Out of Hell" sound like "Rock Is Dead" (1998) and "The Love Song" (2000).

"[2] In his review of Lest We Forget: The Best Of, The Chicago Maroon's Matt Zakosek wrote that "every time you're ready to write him off as the obligatory recording artist of the moment to piss off the religious right, Manson comes out of left field with a surprisingly heartfelt, poetic track like 'The Reflecting God' or 'Long Hard Road Out of Hell.

[13] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic praised the song for being "a good bridge between the goth-industrial Antichrist Superstar and the electronically tweaked glam of Mechanical Animals.

"[6] MetalSucks' Axl Rosenberg said that "Long Hard Road Out of Hell" is "fine" and "basically sounds like Antichrist Superstar-era Manson with female backing vocals."

Rosenberg found the track superior to other cuts from Spawn: The Album such as the DJ Spooky remix of Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1985) and "Satan" (1998) by Kirk Hammett and Orbital.

As the film's opening credits had entered his mind, Glazer proposed that the video center on a man being chased down a dark, desolate road by an old car.

[18] The music video for the song was directed by Matthew Rolston,[19] and was filmed at the site of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination,[1] the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

[21] Writing for Noisey, Alexandra Serio wrote that the depiction of the Virgin Mary in the clip is part of the band's history of "pissing off Jesus Christ".

[22] In Kerrang!, Mike Rampton praised Manson's "extraordinarily beautiful" hair in the video, adding "Clad in the cymbal-like bustier of an ectomorphic Brunhilde or an Amanda Lepore-esque striking sexual Valkyrie, his glorious locks are a sight to behold.