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Like Nebku, I really enjoyed the first game, so despite many negative reviews, I decided to play the second one.
I'll start with what I liked in the first part: the atmosphere. Although the setting remained the same, it changed a lot. What a decline, what desolation and hopelessness? The sun is shining, Shanalotta is walking around, the dead blacksmith found his lost daughter, the cat is joking, even the enemies make you laugh. Of course, sometimes the atmosphere "normalizes," but it's not the same as in the first part. Actually, whether this is a minus or a plus is debatable. Some, especially those who haven't played the first game, might like this more relaxed atmosphere.
What struck me immediately after the atmosphere and caused purely negative emotions was the redesign. In the first part, there were normal undead, but here there are some vague green zombies. The sight of the "dragon" weapons and armor immediately made me not want to play as this covenant, although in the first part I really liked its visual aspect. And finally, just look at this monstrosity, what complexes must a person have? Even if we assume that only I don't like the new design, a gratuitous change within the same series is definitely not a good thing.
The covenants in this part are also not very well done. Personally, I found only two interesting: the champions (which I played through the whole game) and the brotherhood (where I went to try my luck in the arena), but the problem is not so much in this, but in the fact that finding covenants in this game is a rather boring activity. In the first part, this was implemented much more interestingly.
The characters here are kind of... bland. Although there are more of them than in the first part, the storylines of most of them simply boil down to summoning and the reward is always the same: a set of armor. And the abundance of characters again affects the atmosphere.
Soul gems (alternative healing items) are absolutely unnecessary. Why change the excellent healing mechanic that only used Estus flasks – I don't understand.
I also didn't like the "soul memory" mechanic. I was constantly worried about it, because before, for comfortable PvP, it was enough to remember the level, which was not difficult. Now I have to keep track of both. The ring helps, but sacrificing a slot just for comfort in PvP is not ideal.
Well, I've criticized the game. Now I can praise it a little.
New combat mechanics have been introduced. I liked them all.
There are many bosses, some are frankly boring and easy, some are difficult and interesting. Overall, it's okay. The only thing is that the bosses are now almost not locked.
The level design and ordinary mobs did not cause any particular complaints; it is quite interesting to run around the locations. However, it does not reach the level of the first part; in the first part, there were excellent secret locations. And the transitions between locations were much more natural.
Finally, they introduced a normal PvP mode, with an arena, anti-cheat, and other goodies. The only thing that annoyed me was that the community became worse. They don't even know what etiquette is.
The game has become noticeably more comfortable. The camera doesn't jerk, the crosshair doesn't jump. I had to tinker with the settings, but overall it's much more pleasant than in the first part. And the teleport from the very beginning greatly simplifies life.
Now I need to tell you how I played and what else I noticed.
I played as a pure warrior, focusing on dexterity and wearing medium armor. I liked it much more than in the first part, the variety of builds. Here you can make a poison build, a bleed build, and fight with your bare hands, and many other options. I was very pleased with the additions. The style of all locations is well maintained, all the bosses are interesting. However, the only bosses in the game that really annoyed me were the black tigers from the DLC. I killed the boss on the fourth try, dying more than 20 times along the way.
Conclusion
From everything written above, one could conclude that the game is at best so-so, but this is not entirely true. Yes, we lost the atmosphere, the seamless world, the characters, but we gained a normal PvP mode, comfortable controls, the ability to defeat a huge number of new bosses and mobs with a huge number of new weapons with new mechanics, which is very good. In general, if the first part is remembered primarily by the game world, perhaps you should not play this one, because it is expensive. But if you really liked the combat and exploration of locations, I recommend playing it. I, as a person who liked everything in the first part except for the convenience of controls, will give the game 8/10, because despite my grumbling, the emotions from the playthrough remained almost entirely positive. By the way, I rate the first part 9/10.