Okay, I really like this game. I tend to avoid the "launch game" genre, because really, it's all the same thing. But, Kick the Critter caught my attention, and after playing for… three hours… I found it to be very well balanced. I very rarely ever restarted a run without having something to upgrade. As much as I do like some grindy games, I never felt like I was grinding here.
That said, I found an issue that annoyed me. On the final boss, if I didn't win the fight, I got absolutely nothing for the run, and either had to defeat the boss, or intentionally not make it to the boss to save my loot and XP. I'm curious if that's intentional or not.
And the mini games were a brilliant and fun diversion from the main game. That's another thing that broke the grindy feeling. Sure, I've seen them all before, but that just meant I didn't need to sit there and learn the mini game for another fifteen minutes.
The final boss was fun, clever, and based mostly on skill and a little bit of luck. It would be nice to have some sort of upgrade that helps with the boss, though.
So, to sum up, fun game, fun mini games, balanced leveling, and a weird bug that isn't too difficult to work around. Four and a half stars.