Writing for Vice, Robert Christgau gave Overly Dedicated an "A−" and found it to be as good as Lamar's first official album Section.80 (2011): "Only three classics: the besotted "Alien Girl," the merely sexed-up "P&P 1.5," and "Average Joe," a position paper for the gangsta realism to follow. But the many cameos document a party-crashing crew utterly delighted by how good they are at this shit. There’s a sense of fun and antic possibility here Lamar abjured on his road to iconicity. In pop music, that’s a spiritual resource there’s never enough of." Mikey McCray of Creative Loafing wrote: "Compton, Calif. emcee takes his place among the best of the new West," however also wrote: "A couple tracks felt out of place. 'Michael Jordan' had a Weezy flow and Jeezy beat but the weak chorus was far from a MJ fadeaway. Don't know who was imitating Bilal on the 'ROTC (Interlude)' but they killed an otherwise stellar track with a cover fail of Common's 'The Light.'"
