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We played Rise of the Goblin Guild last night with two brand new Kineticists, a Paladin, a Cleric and a Wizard.
I was playing the Hydrokineticist, so a lot of the following will be from that point of view.
I was human with the Water Blast and Slick abilities, with both Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot.
The first encounter was quickly ended by a sleep spell from the wizard, but the kineticist was not helpful in the questioning of the prisoner. There is a definite lack of skill points at first level, but I consider that for every character that has two skill points per level (it is something I wish had been fixed in the update from 3.5, but that is a bigger issue).
The scenario then goes into a sewer complex to fight a bunch of goblins. I and the other kineticist player definitely felt like one trick ponies, though the blast is quite powerful when it hit (mine was doing between 8 and 13 damage). There was some creative use of the water blast to try and put out the second round of fire damage from alchemist fire (hitting the ceiling and letting it rain). We were unsure if the water stayed around after it had been blasted, or if it dissipates....that may need to be clarified.
One thing that we both commented on is that the Kineticist should have minor control over their elements at first level for free. For example the Hydrokineticist should have an ability (let us call it Hose), where they can create water (as per the spell) in a stream from their hand, like a garden hose, instead of a water cannon. The Telekineticist should get Light Touch for free. I would think these are intrinsic to the flavour of the class, and wouldn't be overpowered to get for free.
Neither of us used the Burn mechanic, so I have no comments around that.
Edit: the player of the Telekineticist was disappointed in the way it played and probably won't be playing hers again unless the final version improves the versatility of the class. I am a little more on the fence, but wouldn't elect to play one as a permanent character without some changes
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I am not a games designer, or pretend to be. I suppose from my point of view, I want more out of my water blast than just the "I am a water cannon". I want to be able to do cool things like blow the caltrops off the floor, create a puddle of mud, clean windows :), things that you would expect a strong stream of water to be able to do. As it is written, it does damage, but you can create no other effects outside of the combat effects from the infusions. If I can create a stream of water strong enough to cause damage, surely I can do some of the other effects a stream of water can do.
This comment may be particular to the Hydrokineticist, as it taps into the vast amount of things that we currently use a stream of water for, from watering our gardens, to putting out fires, to using it to destroy things in mining.
In a home game, you could probably work with your GM to enable more versatility to the couple of options you have at low levels, but you would get a LOT of table variation in something like PFS.
It comes down to having a bit more versatility to the class, as for some of us, versatility means more fun.