Casual game players have given my game 5 stars and great reviews, jaded industry pros (and arcade game/retro fans) have not liked it of course.
Good point.I think there's another interesting point to be made here aswell. Grey Aliens boring formularic repetitous drivel actually improves each generation, while the industries boring repetitous formularic drivel (like say Prince of Persia, but really, just pick any franchise) gets significantly worse each generation.
Holiday Bonus is clearly the best match 3 game I've played (which argueably doesn't say much, since I've only tried Tetris Attack, Bejewled, the bilge pump in Puzzle Pirates and Christmas Bonus before). I think that's kind of an acheivement all on it's own tho', and if he only needs to sell 500 copies to break even, that sounds like a pretty good deal to me.