I'm afraid there's little you can do, maybe it's just a normal G dance not a sandbox (or whatever this term might *really* mean..).
It's probably better if you wait and move to the next project, keep building backlinks as suggested and, as a side note, I have TONS of websites, none with original content in very diverse niches and they're ranking as good as they always did. I don't rewrite sh*t, and some are just lousy auto-translated mirrors (that are doing fine as well, if you ask me...). Hell, I even gained authority on a few of them...