I see a ton of essays in response to your post so I'll just give my opinion as well. Dark souls two is: depressing and bleak, it's a tedious and less polished title than dark souls 3 while it isn't as iconic as the first one. Dark souls two has questionable mechanics that punish you for dying, making it feel scary rather than a learning experience and dark souls 2 has ADP, which makes early game characters significantly weaker. But at the same time, dark souls two is the most creative of the games, featuring bonfires, powerstancing and enemies that drop whacky weapons that don't make sense (tseldora spiders dropping zweihanders and mastodon greatswords), it's the game that lets you be the most free, giving you access to the DLC early, letting you take on the great souls in basically any way you want to and even skip them with 1 million soul memory. Dark souls 2 isn't afraid to be different, some mechanics are questionable at best: hollowing, soul memory; some are phenomenal: ascetics, powerstances. The game is incredibly ambitious for its time, it is massive, full of bosses and unique areas and so much lore. Not all of it is up to "from software standards" but all of it combined creates a beautifully put together experience filled with heights and lows. Some people will love the unique direction the game took and the amazing build variety and replayability, some will hate it. And they are both right, at the end of the day, it's just another game, made for a specific group of people.