I appreciate the feedback and honesty. My goal was for the player to feel as if they were the mob trying to kill the hero. As well as push the idea that's the game is more so about the hero, roles reversed, instead of it being about the player. Might have done so to literally at the cost of ruining the players fun. My bad.
There certainly were extra features planned for the jam, to make the gameplay more enjoyable for the player. Extra mobs, tank (meat shields), projectile (fireballs), support (healer/ buffs) types as well as being able to switch from one to another that has already spawned, so you could keep switching till you got the one you wanted to use. Also better AI for the hero, I wanted it to behave more like an actual player and move away and shoot projectiles at the player (mobs). The better AI and the ability to switch mobs was were worked on but due to my own coding ability I wasn't able to get it to a standard I liked, there were a few bugs with it, especially the switching mob. So I sadly had to scrap it for a more basic approach.
I certainly agree about the hero's level up pop-up being annoying. I wanted to draw attention to it and treat it like the hero was the one choosing it itself. An approach of a smaller notification and the game not being paused would have made the player experience better.
Again, I want to thank you for the feedback. I'll be more mindful of the players experience especially on the gameplay side, in my next coming games.