Can literature review be a research paper on its own?

Literature reviews, often referred to by journals as just "Reviews" can and are their own form of research paper. My very first publication was a review like this, so it's clearly possible.

How viable a paper like that is will probably depend on the conventions of your field. For example, mine generally requires that these "expert reviews" (in contrast to a meta-analysis or systematic review) be solicited by the editor, not cold submitted. That involves shopping your manuscript around a little to see if anyone is willing to "invite" it, having a senior person backing you who can prompt a colleague to invite it, or finding a journal who accepts cold submitted reviews.