I would say yes. John McClane was different than the action heroes of the time. He was buff but he was a normal cop who was good at thinking on his feet and improvising. He took a lot of wounds over the course of the movie, and apparently some audiences thought he would die at the end. I think the scene where he's dragging his bloody feet across the floor really exemplifies this difference. In the following scene, he is hurt and tired and starts thinking that maybe he won't make it out alive. It was a very different tone than contemporary action films.