Finished it today, really really disappointed in the number of NPC's, how short the NPC quest-lines are, and the fact that there are only 2 'roaming' NPC's.
Overall the bosses are kinda meh, outside of the last 2 bosses, which are truly epic (granted the setting helps a LOT), I just kinda wish that Gehrman wasn't parry-able, as I love to parry too much, but it makes it an easy fight, even with parrying, Gehrman is still a better fight than Gwyn was, yet not as good as False King Allant. The only main game (I've not played very much of the Chalice Dungeon's yet) boss that was truly difficult was Ebriatas, Daughter of the Cosmos, mostly due to her charging attacks that are horrendous to dodge, and then how much her lazers hurt, which are also painful to dodge. The only other notable bosses are Vicar Amelia (she hits very very hard, and some of her stuff is hard to dodge) and the Blood Starved Beast, because of it's bullshit poison aura, and you're very unlikely to have enough poison resistance by the time you fight it, meaning if you get caught by one of its combo's without monstrous health by that point you're going to be wrecked and won't be able to recover and pop a vial before the poison gets you.
Ultimately nothing in this game comes close to the masterpiece bosses that are the False King, Astraea, Maneaters, Flamelurker, Capra, Sith or O&S (having said that Nostalgia might be playing a part in Meaneaters and Flamelurker, not fought them in a while, and even longer since I've fought Flamelurker without magic), which is a real shame after the disappointment that was the bosses in Dark Souls 2 (Darklurker aside, but one boss out of 30+ is really really bad haha)
The great things about this game is the atmosphere and the level design, for me that's on a whole new level compared to prior games, even if it does end up a bit dreary with all the grey, brown and black (the woods were a massive missed opportunity for me, could have easily been split into two with a boss in the middle of it all, and then they could have also added more colour to the area by adding glowing florescent plants and other stuff like that, adding a bit more of a high fantasy side to the game, as that's also the area where 'kin' first start appearing (IIRC)). My favourite areas were pre-blood-moon Yahar'gul (Yahar'gul in general was pretty great, crap final boss aside, just pre-moon is just amazing), Cainhurst and Hemwick at sunset was particularly great (again shame about the boss). Didn't like the woods or Byrgenworth at all, I've already mentioned I felt that the woods were a missed opportunity, and Byrgenworth should have been the Anor Londo moment of the game, a really really difficult complex area with an awesome boss, a twist in the story, and a bit of dialog to help explain shit (as if you're not paying attention to the lore and the notes, which are both easy to miss and hard to piece together stuff at this point will start making very little sense, if they still did already)
Overall the atmosphere and level design are the best between Demon's and Dark souls (1, 2 is utter wank, and shouldn't exist as it is), the bosses are weaker and the story is far far weaker than it's kin, also From, where the fuck is my Moonlight Greatsword, been playing with that greatness since Kings field, I want my Moonlight greatness :'(
Edit: For a normal games standard 9.5/10, from a FromSoft standard 7/10.
Edit 2: Both the nightmare areas also sucked because of the Frenzy in Mensis and the combination of Poison and Frenzy in parts of Frontier, and Poison in general in Frontier, just urgh at both of those levels.
