While not as challenging as Demon Souls I love this game much more than it's predecessor. A truly great Sequel.
Story - 7
The plot was never much of a concern in Demon Souls and finds itself to be even less involved in this game. The basic story is that you are a fated undead who is to defeat Gwyn, Lord of Cinder and link the fire to save the world from it's impending plunge back into the time of darkness and rule of the undead. With out much to expand or further the story there isn't much else to it but this game was never to be about its story anyway.
Graphics - 9
I love the art style of this game. From the giant open ended world to the fierce and impressive looking bosses.
Sound - 10
While most of the game finds itself devoid of music, it's the boss encounters that display the best of this subject. The music pulls you into the atmosphere and intensity of the boss fight. The final battle with Lord Gwyn has perhaps my favorite tune in the game. I sometimes found myself content with dying on a boss just because it meant that I would get to hear the music again.
Game-play - 9
The reason that the fans of the series came back for more. The Souls series has achieved a reputation for it's punishing difficulty and I feel that the difficulty is somewhat lacking. I died much more often playing Demon Souls. Dark Souls has lessened the souls required to level from it's predecessor which immediately softens the blow which isn't a bad thing because it gives you better opportunities and access to perhaps my favorite feature of the game, its weapons and armor. There are more pieces of gear in this game than Demon Souls could've dreamed of as well as a farewell to item burden. I myself was particular to a Great Shield and Spear combo. The combat is vastly improved in the game which I believe also has to do with softening the difficulty. With access to a kick move which causes lighter and smaller enemies to stumble you gain a lunging attack which causes you to jump through the air and deliver a (usually thrusting/impaling motion) high damaging attack. Perhaps my favorite feature of the combat was the addition of Pyromancy, a source of fire element magic that relied on the power of it's flame than on a stat such as intelligence which lead to my build being able to perform a very powerful secondary form of damage and to retain its most crucial stats. Humanity was a very interesting stat in this game that played a pretty important role such as reverting back to human form, kindling bonfires for more Estus, scaling damage for chaos weapons, item find, and leveling certain covenants. You gain humanity as an item and reward from enemies, npc's, and killing invading players. Multiplayer is something I'm not quite sure about in this game yet. While it is nice to less likely be invaded it was thrilling to know that at any moment you could face invasion and death by the hands of another player which is fine because pvp in this game mainly consisted of people trying to cheese me with a Ring of Fog.
Difficulty - 8
Perhaps one of the only things I found lacking in this game. I rarely found myself needing to improve my health or dying all that much. Most bosses were easily taken down the first or second try. With the loss of the of Demon Souls greatest push to the difficulty (soul form, which is where you lose 50% of your max health) it was undeniable to me that this game would not be as hard as Demon Souls but It's not so easy to the point where it's no fun. After finding myself in new game+ The game has not jumped too much in its challenge. With getting to keep 95% of what you earned in the normal game, it seems even easier despite me still putting very few points into vitality.
With one or two minor setbacks I still enjoyed this game greatly. I can only hope that if another game is established in the Souls series that it inspires the dread of the games that came before it as well as possibly including a hard mode that scales appropriately for its new game+ and so on.