I think the difficulty of Dark Souls 2 is fine, From Soft needs to find the balance between retaining hardcore veterans and not pushing away potential new players, NG is easier, but NG+ is lot more difficult and players have the option to make game harder through champion covenant and bonfire ascetics.
The biggest let down is the boss fights, there are a few good ones but I think many bosses are just poorly designed compares to the first two games.
Sorcery is okay, Hex is very powerful but the strongest Hexes require lots of attunment slots and consume souls when cast, so you won't make use of them until late game, which is kinda balanced I guess, Miracles are definitely too strong, lightning spears do massive damage, have a good number of uses, can be found in abundance (3 great lightning spear per play through), and the strongest chime is also the fastest, it's no surprising so many people are using faith builds.
