Hi, thanks a lot for all of your feedback! I'll address what I can in response :)
Clearly I need to make this more apparent, but Paladin and Mountain are just randomly-generated names - both of those characters are of the Soldier class and have the same deck and upgrades to choose from. Currently there are two classes in game, the Soldier and the Ninja, with at least one more (Engineer) planned. I recently added the ability to play as the same class just to give people another option since playing as just the Soldier and Ninja each time could get repetitive.
The looping is just a temporary solution to let the player see and experience more deck and upgrade synergies - the full game will have three environmental levels to complete, each with unique enemy encounters. A lot of the enemies in the first (and only) level are melee, pistol, and shotgun enemies, which forces them to get into close range to the player. While the option for a non-movement deck should be a possibility (with things like stacking Stealth for the Ninja or long-range sniper cards for the Soldier), movement cards are admittedly not as important for the Soldier as they are for the Ninja or Engineer.
Funny enough, your point about viruses is one I put a lot of thought into, as optimizing the fun out of something is always what good players will do, and what you described is exactly how I saw it playing out. In my current build, I've changed removing cards to be an option post-combat instead of adding a card. I feel that missing out on a card or money is (for now) a fair price to pay for removing a card, and viruses can also be removed this way. I like allowing the player to remove viruses during combat, too, though. By trashing the virus once it's recycled, it ensures that if you want to wait it out like you chose to, you have to suffer its effects each turn as you can't just recycle it and wait for it to be drawn again once combat is safe. Once the game is better-balanced, hopefully the penalty of not only losing a card slot to keep it in-hand, but the negative effects themselves each turn, will be a better risk/reward choice than the optimal choice to make every time.
The current Shielding mechanic is after numerous iterations, and apart from the Soldier having the option of playing a "tank" class, it's meant to prevent or reduce damage from a single attack. This is another important aspect of movement cards - since you can view the attack range of enemies, and always have their intended target and action, movement becomes a defensive option to prevent them from reaching you to attack. I'm not saying it's perfect, and I'm sure some more adjustments will occur, just giving you the reasoning behind it :)
For upgrades, each character class has around 15 unique upgrades, and there are 10 upgrades that are class-neutral. The class-specific ones are always chosen from for reaching level 3 (also I hate the term 'level' for that and need a better phrase/graphic), and the shop will contain 1-2 character-specific upgrades. Neutral upgrades are always at least one shop option, and are always chosen from upgrade machines. I think your frustration was coming from playing the same class for both characters and seeing ones you wanted to swap with. Since levelup upgrades are class-specific, and require the character to have three consecutive combats without dying to gain, there are no plans to allow them to be swapped between characters.
I went with the option to draw up to your hand size each turn for two reasons - one, initially it was a simple discard/redraw each turn. I like that style because it forces you to work with what you're given rather than what you want, but I also liked the option to 'set up' plays yourself. Since NOT recycling a card reduces your power gain each turn, I made the change to let the player choose to not recycle a card and hold on to it between turns. If the player can hold cards and then draw ADDITIONAL cards each turn, this would produce strategies to run and hide for as long as possible to build up a giant hand, and then unload everything at once. By capping the hand size each turn, it still retains that 'work with what you have' strategy, while providing the option to save up for a wombo-combo if you're willing to make some sacrifices to do so.
Finally, the theme is absolutely cyberpunk, and additional character, environment, and ability designs should reinforce this as more content is added :)
Thanks again for all of the feedback, you've given me a lot to think about and work with, and that's the best thing I can ask for!