OK, I managed to win one of the two games I played during lunch today. I got to the Escape Pod with 10 Vitality remaining but only the 3 Essential Gear cards equipped. (10 points) There was 1 Healing and 1 Weapon card left in the deck (+2 points), but fourteen Threats (-14 points) and the Amalgam (-15 points) left as well. So my final total was...
...negative seventeen points (-17 points). Ouch.
I did have a two questions about scoring.
1) The last corridor I encountered had 2 Threats, the Escape Pod, and the Basic Medkit. I faced the Threats and left the Basic Medkit for last to fulfill the conditions of the Escape Pod. But that meant I had 1 Healing card left on the table at the end of the game. Should that card have been put on the bottom of the deck before I scored my game?
2) The +2 points for each non-Essential, non-Backpack Gear card equipped part seems odd. As you need all three pieces of Essential Gear and the Backpack to win, that only leaves one empty Inventory slot. So you will only ever at most have one other Gear card equipped. I don't know if this part is needed, as filling that last Inventory space with a Healing card already gets you some additional points.