The album was released by Epic Records in the United States as Two Wheels Good in anticipation of legal conflict with the estate of American actor Steve McQueen.

Retrospectively, Steve McQueen has received lasting critical acclaim, widely credited as an indie pop benchmark and ranked by many British publications among the greatest albums of all time.

Record Mirror's Graham K. Smith awarded it a score of five out of five, championing it as "the finest album you will hear this year" and Paddy McAloon as "the country's best (by a mile) songwriter".

[12] Rating the album nine out of ten in Smash Hits, Chris Heath praised McAloon as one of the best writers of "depressingly precise songs about the joys, fears and disappointments of love" and lamented that listeners might be put off by the "obscurity and complexity" of Prefab Sprout's music.

"[15] In a less enthusiastic review for NME, Danny Kelly found Steve McQueen "both brilliant and flawed", complimenting McAloon's songwriting but criticising the album's "clipped, parchment-dry jazz" sound.

[16] At the end of 1985, Steve McQueen was named the fourth best album of the year by NME,[17] and placed 28th in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll.

AllMusic's Jason Ankeny appraised it as "a minor classic, a shimmering jazz-pop masterpiece sparked by Paddy McAloon's witty and inventive songwriting.

"[7] Reviewing the 2007 legacy edition for Record Collector, Terry Staunton wrote that "more than 20 years on, his dissertations on love, loss and uncertainty are just as affecting, the intelligence of the lyrics matched by the sophistication of the chord structures and the musical arrangements.

"[24] The Sunday Times labelled the legacy edition as revealing McAloon's "genius" and described the record as being "buttressed by a phenomenal rhythm section and fairy-dusted with Wendy Smith's breathy harmonies".

[30] Steve McQueen was featured in Treble's 2014 list of 10 essential sophisti-pop albums;[31] in his review for Pitchfork, Troussé cited it as "the defining record of 1985 sophisto-pop".