As a side note, there are a few low level monsters who I feel do a bit too much damage. I'd be reluctant to throw a whole group a fire beetles at a first level aprty, just as I'd be reluctant to throw a group of guard drakes or needlesfang drake swarms. Much like previous editions you should probably still eyeball the monsters before using them. This is probably even more important when you only have 2 players.
Also I think the poster claiming the party used poor tactics is completely out of line given that he has no idea what the setup was. If you get attacked by fire beetles in a random outdoor battle and go down before you can take an action, that's far from poor tactics.