Robin Smith of Record Mirror highlighted the album's emotional restraint, commenting that it plays less like a statement of "raw emotion" and more like a "diary" of Collins' "disappointments, hopes and fantasies". In Sounds, Hugh Fielder said that it effectively captured Collins' "multi-faceted" musicality with songs ranging "from funky beat to melancholic ballads with occasional pop and avant garde twinges." Melody Makers Allan Jones considered Face Value a compelling stylistic divergence from Collins' work in Genesis, writing that the album "delights in confounding the familiar parameters" of the band's music. Rolling Stone critic Steve Pond was more reserved in his praise. He complimented Collins for forgoing Genesis' "high-blown conceits" for a simpler sound rooted in "basic pop and R&B", but found that "[his] broken heart is too clearly on his sleeve, and musical missteps abound". Pond nonetheless deemed it "unmistakably the most worthy Genesis product" since Peter Gabriel's 1977 debut album.
