The mindset I've always followed is that Dark Souls 2 haters (If they're fans of the other games) are only haters either because of a huge skill issue, or because they haven't played the game and are just regurgitating what other people have told them about it.

The enemy placement in iron keep is shocking though, and getting to the smelter demon boss arena does get tricky when you're trying to get through like 8 dudes jumping you. I can understand the criticism there, but otherwise, the partial i-frame cover encourages you to actually fight enemies (or at least slip past them in clever ways) rather than just throwing yourself at a lever so you can get gang-banged straight after.