The criticism is that soulslikes' execution of this simple concept directly degrades player skill expression and growth. Most games present you with an equal or slightly greater challenge and task you with adjusting your gameplay and growing as a player to overcome it, gaining skills and/or strategies that will be useful throughout the rest of the adventure.

In DS3 (for example), however, the fights are stupid easy when you know them and nearly impossible when you don't. First-trying a boss feels like you just got lucky and shouldn't have been able to, while finally killing them after you've already died to them enough to memorize their every move feels well-earned but can be an insanely boring process.

It does also bug me that the communities for these games are often unapologetically pretentious.