And leveling up means disk so why bother kill anything. Explore the map, that's where the real fun is. It's so fun navigating your way into these dead ends to find nothing at all or be looped back around searching for the tiny path that'll mean a new area with all the same features. So much fun. Sure is pretty though.

I'm curious to know what a player who isn't a souls enthusiast nor powerleveled through the base game as a newbie to souls makes of this. That's where a proper opinion will be found.

I agree with everything he said apart from Lies of P having better combat. He hit on everything with no bias, even the over attack chain and map design. He only missed the contrast between standard mobs in terms of difficulty.

Im having a tough time finiding my way around this DLC. The map is flat, but the world is so vertically leveled, so its hard to find your way to certain places.

I just encountered the very first BS area. It's not a boss, just a whole ass area that made me turn the game off for today. Eugh.

I like the overworld map design in this DLC. The map is already big and there's a lot to discover due to the verticality. Just wished more enemies weren't recycled, though.

Also, not very deep in the story so far, so no spoilers, but it does feel like Miquella is very Jesus-inspired, isn't he? Including some pretty obscure Christology concepts like Kenosis, specifically. As if the Frenzied Flame being inspired by platonic monism wasn't enough, Miyazaki does love his Greek philosophy and theology.

Trust me, the more you understand the map and its MANY intricacies, the more you'll enjoy traversing the world. 

I also had a hard time at first but the more I explored and reminded myself where to go and what to do the better the experience became. Heck, this DLC is so hard that MAP READING is a challenge! 

I love it. 

I think I know what you're talking about lol, that annoyed me so much

Well the DLC released on June 21.
On June 22, you wrote this:

"Yep. This is Dark souls 2 all over again. I'm gonna give it one or two last sessions"

For an open world game that allows for various approaches to gameplay, it's difficult for me to expect validity in such a strong assessment after 1 day. And if someone thought it was fair to say that after 1 day, I'm not sure they're likely to ever be acceptant of the fact that they may need to think of this from a different angle.

If a regular enemy takes 5 minutes to beat after multiple deaths, one type of player will keep on trying until they kill it.
Another will think "Maybe I'm not supposed to do this" and instead explore their options and potentially go elsewhere.

I posted examples of a few. One is Kai Cenat who just played his first Soulslike (Elden Ring) a few weeks ago.
The games he used to call "peak" before that were games like Call of Duty, NBA 4K, Spider Man, etc.

But after he played Red Dead 2 and Elden Ring, he said it "opened his eyes."

Not a Soulslike enthusiast may be putting it mildly, as he was seemingly something of a stereotypical 'casual gamer'.
And these were his thoughts on the DLC after beating Messmer.

"It's a skill issue. I'm ass, and you're ass."
"Why would they take 2 years to make a DLC for you to breeze past in a day or two"?

Leveling should still be impactful. But generally only if you collect Fragments. Because they give a percentual boost seemingly based on your stats that come from traditional leveling. 

FYI I think exploration is the best part of Elden Ring because I find that it often enhances the enjoyment of the combat.

Just taking on regular enemies that are too difficult just for the sake of it (excluding the amount of exp/souls they give) is usually not my cup of tea.
But if I'm deep into an area that's too high level for me, and an even more powerful regular enemy is there, but this time they can drop a powerful weapon suitable for my build? Then it's worth taking them on.

Giant Hunt is what Pekora (Vtuber) used to beat Rellana in the image I posted earlier.

As for Fragments being a different kind of level up system from the base game because "many of them are locked behind story and area progress", you can actually get the majority of the blessings (12/20) which equals 25 Fragments, quickly and without fighting any major bosses.
Specifically, it's one mini-boss described as "easy" if you got the other fragments up until that point.
(And by mini-boss I mean the kind that does not have a boss-lifebar or name. They have a regular lifebar.)
And there's a cave boss. And then there is an actual boss version of the mini boss mentioned earlier.

And that's it. You'll have 12/20 blessings without encountering a major boss.

Because just like in the base game, there are secret passages allowing you to bypass some main bosses.
So it seems to me that this is a similar approach to how it worked in the base game after all. In the base game, the first thing I did was run to Caelid and dodged every enemy while running through a river of rot, just to grab a powerful wand from a chest.
And there were more things you could do like that. But eventually you'll need to take on some bosses that guard the other gear or spells you want. But there were enough tools scattered around the map not guarded by major bosses, or some times any boss for that matter, to make that challenge more managable. If not trivialized at times depending on how easy you wanted to make the game.

Each blessing gives you a 5% offense and damage reduction boost. 12 would equal a 60% boost. And if we consider offensive and defensive separate, like how you put points into your stats separately, it's a 120% boost.
Which seem to scale with your overall stats, so the higher level you are, the bigger the boost you'll get.
That's where the traditional leveling system comes in.

It may seem rather unimportant at the start. But the more fragments you get, the more impactful it becomes.