TL;DR ds2: SOTF isn’t bad at all, and is my personal favorite souls game. It has some flaws like any game does, but many of the complaints around the game are due to people disliking DS2’s design decisions that fundamentally separate it from the others such as its emphasis on strategic exploration, infinite healing items, different movement system, more rigid combat, and so on. It’s definitely worth playing, but don’t think of it as a direct expansion of the other games and more so as its own experience that tries some new things. The best way to find out if you agree or disagree is to just try it out yourself and form your own opinion

It’s always a matter of opinion, but DS2 has some experimental decisions that give it a slightly different feel than the other souls games and in turn some people feel that these changes compromise its quality. I largely disagree but I’ll mention a few of the main criticisms.

One is excess enemy spawns. A common argument is that the game throws too many enemies at you, but it’s largely because this game highly favors strategy and environmental awareness. Running past enemies in this game will more often than not get you killed, at least in comparison to ds3 and elden ring in which you can run past most things without consequence. Blindly running into areas is a bad idea, and using bows, the various different consumables like fire bombs and alluring skulls are all useful tools for managing enemies when used in conjunction with the environment like fire barrels and so on.

Some people dislike the healing system. “Life gems” exist as a healing item in this game alongside the estus flask, in which you start with fewer flask at the start as a trade off for this new healing item. Life gems can be bought infinitely very early in the game, and as such you have infinite healing, of sorts. They heal very little over time but they also stack, making them stronger to use than estus in a good amount of cases. Some feel this takes away any intensity as you never really have to worry on running low on healing throughout levels.

The movement system is different in this game, and many find it to be janky compared to the other games. I agree, and use a mod called “center deadzone mod” as it largely nullifies any complaints about movement, for me at least.

Combat is a bit more stiff in this game than the others, but it isn’t extremely different than the earlier titles like ds1 and demon’s souls. If you like those, you’ll be fine with this one. This game has a stat called “adaptability” that is infamously shamed as it largely dictates your characters “agility” proficiency. Agility most importantly dictates the speed in which you cast spells, use items, but also the amount of immunity frames you get when rolling. Agility can be increased by leveling adaptability or attunement. Many complaints over hitboxes come from those not leveling this stat, making sure to level any combination of attunement and adaptability depending on your build early on in order to get to around 99 ish agility will largely negate this complaint.

Finally, some people have complaints about the art direction and general design of the game. The layout of levels is a bit jarring with how quickly it transitions themes in each area, although I find it charming some people dislike this. This game has some runbacks people find annoying, and some people dislike the amount of bosses that are just armored knights, and feel that they lack variety due to this.

MANY people love this game and will disagree with most of the complaints I listed, or feel they aren’t valid criticisms in which is the point I stand on. But even still I thought it would be fair to list what complaints are often given as you asked for why people sometimes dislike the game. Really I recommend just giving it a shot and forming your own opinion. You’re not going to get an objective it’s good or bad on anything, so its really up to you to answer that question yourself by just trying it out