Another thing I'd like to throw into the debate:
I think the 8-fire-stack-gun-kick mechanic to be very unintutive. Personally I didn't realize what's going on until I read up on it on the forum. Perhaps due to the lack of ingame feedback for the event (you just get kicked out - no further animation/message to emphasize something special is happening) I stood more or less baffled next to the gun and spammed E the first times I got kicked off by flames.
I will continue to repeat it many, many, many times:
Better (mandatory) tutorials.
While tutorials are generally helpful and ours could certainly be more so, I don't think they can serve as a panacea. Certainly not in this case - as a new player, bombarded with input in a tutorial, can very likely forget about such a minor detail as fire-kicks until he encounters one ingame.
All game mechanics should be designed and presented in a way that allows the player to grasp the concept without further instructions. The fire-kick mechanic is presented extraordinarily poorly in that regard.
On a more general note: I dislike the idea of force-pestering players with tutorials. I'm a notorious tutorial skipper myself and can't stand games which make me "learn" that I can rotate my field of view by moving my mouse.