Hi there,
Seeing as I've been living in Kuwait for the last 6 months I think I'm in a good position to give you some advice here. Contrary to the "sand and camels" reputation, Kuwait is a great place to live.
The weather is great, the people are great, you wear what you want (you'd be surprised exactly how "western" it is here), there are huge shopping malls packed with the latest designer stores, all stocked with main brands, there's a fast-food culture with every single mainstream restaurant represented here.
Radio plays every kind of music from Jazz to Slipknot, there are daily papers in Arabic & English, Satellite tv gets all major UK and USA channels.
The restrictions? No displays of public affection (unless you're wearing wedding rings - but this is never policed, or at least I've never seen it enforced and there are dozens of teenagers - both Arabic and Western - holding hands all over the place). The main restriction is that some internet pages are blocked by the ISP's (hence I have an account with Proxify) but the only things that are blocked are sites with an "adult theme". News is freely available and uncensored.
In the time I've been here, there have been terror alerts in the UK, USA, Europe and Africa. How many in Kuwait? None. There isn't anything you'd recognise as "crime" here. Domestic burglary doesn't exist, assaults and murders just don't happen here. It might have something to do with the fact that when 5 Philippino guys gang raped a female teacher last year they hung them publically and left their bodies on display for 24hrs in the open and put it on the front page of the paper just to get the point home.
Basically, for a 32 year old English guy, there's enough to keep me busy, while getting a tan, earning a nice tax-free income and having a good lifestyle.
Give it a try if you can, you might just enjoy it! You certainly won't forget it.
