I guess I didn't pay close enough attention in the tutorial. Can someone please explain what the little stars are that are above you level mean?

Thanks

The more stars you have the better. They just give you a percentage bonus to healing and so forth. So the more stars, the faster you heal.

And when you die, they slowly go away and come back after killing so many enemies.

They're called Hero Points. You get them when you complete one of the first missions at Socrates.

The base is having 3 stars. Having 5 gives you a buff to damage and healing, and having zero gives you a debuff to damage and healing. Dying removes one star, which can be regained by completing missions and defeating enemies.

Thank you for the info