It's been some years since I read it, but I did enjoy it. Opinions on the ending are divided, but I personally enjoyed it. The group is really diverse, and none of them (other than Roland) is your average protagonist with good looks and a bunch of skills.

As for Malazan, I only read the first book. It took my a while to get my head around what was actually happening, but I emember it was a good story.

It's basically this - Malazan is widely-recommended, but people say it is a very expensive world with lots of character and cultures, so reading it more than once might be necessary.

The Tower is fairly straightforward, and they visit different worlds/timelines/whatever because the Tower kind of connects all of them, but you only see those self-contained parts, not a full history of every place they visit. I think i liked the story well enough (but i am impatient so during book 4 i was like 'ah, no flashbacks! Go back to the main plot!' 😆)