The thing to keep in mind about Kirby's Epic Yarn, is that it is not a traditional Kirby game, and is not supposed to be. Return to Dreamland IS a fantastic game, and very traditional. But Epic Yarn was also fantastic in it's own way, for it's own reasons.
The level designs were often very clever, and the soundtrack could often be pretty awesome. And it's not really about the game being "kiddie" or "easy". The way the developer Good-Feel has operated with Wario Land: Shake It and Kirby, and now soon Yoshi's Wooly World, is that they do not design the levels themselves to be super hard (though in Wario some of them did get pretty challenging later on). With Kirby especially, their formula was to make it more about exploring the level, taking your time and just kind of having a game experience you can relax play. You don't really "Die" in Epic Yarn, you lose beads, the collecting of which is the primary focus of the game. You want as many as you can find (or even all of them) in each level, along with the hidden treasures and whatnot in each stage.
The challenge part in any of Good-Feels' games comes not from the stages themselves, but from the "challenges" you unlock after you beat a stage/world. Each stage typically has some sort of optional challenges you can complete after being the level initially, and let me tell you, if you're looking for "hard", some of those challenges, even in Kirby, get pretty fucked. So that's a nice way to approach it, I think. To me, it was nice having a game that was not constantly "edge of your seat, oh shit I'm gonna die" type gameplay. But then they reward you for beating levels by unlocking challenges that do in fact get pretty fuckin' hard at times.
I suppose my advice would be to stick with it, because it really is a fun game if you take it for what it is. And I'd also highly suggest Wario Land on Wii, if you've never played it. The graphics were hand drawn by an anime studio, and it retains all of the classic Wario gameplay. I personally can't wait for Yoshi, because it looks like it's taking everything that was good about Epic Yarn, but it's also very much going to be a Yoshi's Island type game (minus the annoying babies). Plus the yarn graphics and stage designs look even more elaborate and clever now.
