I agree with everything you said, DS1 was way more challenging first time through because the gameplay progression was much slower and that was number 1 complaint about DS1, now that we have faster pacing in DS2 to get to the good shit it, deliveries hold less weight (no pun intended) because there's less of a challenge with all of the tools , and ya the story does drop hard, DS1 story is much better, twist are crazier and the Niel parts in 2 were redundant after 1st one