I just bought it and am horrified by the controls...keyboard only and touching the mouse in any way just makes the camera spin without any actual control.

Yuck! OK, giving the Wii version another try...

You can play with a regular gamepad.

What gamepad do you use?
I have 3 plug and play ones of different layout and age and none work...like at all.

Logitech F510 in X-Input mode.

EDIT: You might have to turn on gamepad control in the options or something, I don't remember.

Funny enough, i can use the launcher to set up the gamepads and they are perfectly recognized there but the game just does not take any inputs from my controllers.
settings are really minimalistic and i have not seen a "enable gamepad" option.

so for me, the game is still unplayable, keyboard and especially mouse camera control is more than just rage inducing...its like flying a plane with controls made of soap.

I can confirm that a PS4 controller works under x360 controller emulation. (DS4TOOL)

Just tested it, Xbox 360 Gamepad works fine and it's a lot better to have an actual button for jumping rather than shaking the controller.

HOWEVER you can smash colour bots by just rolling into them, I don't really recall this from the Wii version (although I haven't played the first part in a while) and it makes sections where you have to paint stuff in a specific colour a little annoying.