I remember Night Trap getting some significant coverage on the ABC Late Night News (I think, it's been a while) at that time. The "Violence and Videogames" special gave mention most to Night Trap and Mortal Kombat.
The news anchor kept making comments, something like "Coming up next... do you know what games your kids are playing?" while showing the clip of the drill killing scene. They did this over and over again, even when going to commercial breaks. It was kind of funny in an odd way. And yeah, they gave mention to Sen. Joe Lieberman's efforts to ban them.
As for the game itself, it's definitely one of the reasons I got a Sega CD/32X. I think Night Trap has that b-movie charm to it, it's the sort of game I'd play at 2am when I can't sleep. It's probably one of the better FMV games for SCD, if not the best.
I tend to agree with most people on the FMV games, I often just want to watch the footage, and that was a big drawback with the FMV games for Sega CD - you just couldn't relax for 2 seconds without having to go look somewhere else.
I have been meaning to make time to play Night Trap in the new Kega build, as I understand it can now play 2 disc games correctly.