  We experimentally study the critical properties of the non-equilibrium
solid-liquid-like transition that takes place in vibrated granular matter. The
critical dynamics is characterized by the coupling of the density field with
the bond-orientational order parameter $Q_4$, which measures the degree of
local crystallization. Two setups are compared, which present the transition at
different critical accelerations as a a result of modifying the energy
dissipation parameters. In both setups five independent critical exponents are
measured, associated to different properties of $Q_4$: the correlation length,
relaxation time, vanishing wavenumber limit (static susceptibility), the
hydrodynamic regime of the pair correlation function, and the amplitude of the
order parameter. The respective critical exponents agree in both setups and are
given by $\nu_{\perp} = 1$, $\nu_{\parallel} = 2$, $\gamma = 1$, $\eta \approx
0.6 - 0.67$, and $\beta=1/2$, whereas the dynamical critical exponent is $z =
\nu_{\parallel}/\nu_{\perp} = 2$. The agreement on five exponents is an exigent
test for the universality of the transition. Thus, while dissipation is
strictly necessary to form the crystal, the path the system undergoes towards
the phase separation is part of a well defined universality class. In fact, the
local order shows critical properties while density does not. Being the later
conserved, the appropriate model that couples both is model C in the Hohenberg
and Halperin classification. The measured exponents are in accord with the
non-equilibrium extension to model C if we assume that $\alpha$, the exponent
associated in equilibrium to the specific heat divergence but with no
counterpart in this non-equilibrium experiment, vanishes.
