More or less, I just can't conceive of these people who have the "opinion" that he didn't have superhero style powers are thinking. He gets in an accident, has magical surgery that makes him able to withstand crazy beatings (forgetting that just because you can't feel it, doesn't mean that your liver isn't falling or your lung isn't collapsing) and a Wolverine style "enhanced skeleton." If that's not a typical superhero origin of a normal guy getting powered up, I don't know what the hell is.
Ok, I have been on the recieving end of kickings comparable to the one Kick-Ass takes from those guys, so here is my own personal experince of the injuries, and how I can give that scene a pass without the need for 'superpowers'.
You can take a really bad kicking escaping without broken bones, but it is down to luck as to where you get kicked.
If you take a kick in a weaker spot of the body, with smaller bones, like, say your hands or wrist, you could get a bad sprain, a fracture or a break. But, if they are kicking into your legs, torso and arms, you will generally get really bad bruising, or maybe a cracked rib. I got bruised ribs so bad, i thought one of my ribs must have cracked, but no it was just bruising. and this was from full force kicks that went on for about a minute or so.
edit: aye, the guys who kicked me where not as big as those guys in the movie, but, my kicking was more sustained, I took more of them, he gets kicked, and then they turn away from him, kicked again, then they turn back to the other guy, and so on, with mine, it was full on non-stop.
and of course, if you take kicks to the face, you will get your nose busted up real bad, again, an area of the body that has smaller bones.
The only time I ever got my lung punctured was when I got stabbed, yeah, it does happen from bad beatings, but it's not common in that regard.
I can believe he got away from that situation with some very bad bruising, I mean, it's not supposed to be 100% reality right, I take it in the same way I do most movie violence, like, it's the same reason why when someone gets ko'd by a punch to the face, they don't get their cheekbones knocked out of place and eyeballs filled up with blood. But, it's not like he has 'superpowers' either. There is a mix of reality, and movie magic.
But even just talking in terms of reality, someone can come away from a kicking with the types of injuries you say, but that is in the worst case scenario, they can also walk away from a real bad kicking with just some very bad brusing, it's down to luck for the most part in where you get kicked.
edit: as for the scene with them on the net cam, well, I'd need to watch it again, from memory, he mostly takes knuckledusters to the face right? Maybe a couple to the stomach.
Well, his face would be a right frickin mess, cheekbones smashed, eyes filled with blood, he'd probably be ko'd as well. So, yeah, there is a hyper reality of movie violence there, same as with all movies, as I was saying, you see folk getting ko'd and they don't have much in the way of bad injuries to the face, but if they took that much force to the face to ko them, they would.
They give him bruises and a bloody face, so again, it's movie magic, they don't want the actor looking too bad for the final scenes. But, aye, those injuries to the face are more intense than the kicking from the gang earlier. He should be a right frickin bloody mess there.
I'd need to watch the scene again to see what kind of hits he took to comment, but, I do think in the case of the earlier one with the gang, he could have escaped from that one with some very bad bruising only.
edit: Of course, they use the conceit of the metal plates and screwed up nerve endings to give the guy 'superpowers', and those types of things would in no way benefit you in real life(although i don't know about the nerve endings thing, arn't there folk who can feel no pain in ceratin areas due to that type of thing? I dunno), but to me, that is just a way of trying to explian the 'movie/comic book magic' thing, where the person doesn't look as messed up as they would if they had been attacked in real life that way.
I also give it a bit of a pass as I imagine he is just one of those types who can take a real good beating, adrenaline kicks in and they can still get up and walk around afterwards. You can ignore the pain too.