I can't speak to the state of this game when it hit the market last fall. I started playing it following the Master of Fate update and my experience with this game was terrific. I've played dozens of Souls-likes and -lites and LOTF feels the closest in spirit to the original Dark Souls.

Thanks to its updates, it's also one of the most accessible Souls-likes I've played. Mods that auto-level weapon drops and the ability to engage NG+ without the difficulty bump (the one place that LOTF really disappoints is its balance in NG+ difficulties) opens the game up to near endless experimentation; only Elden Ring has managed more variety and diversity in its weapons and systems.
Most of the bosses give a terrible first impression; the risk of controller throwing is quite high first time around. But having played the equivalent of about 6 playthroughs on my way to the Platinum, I can confidently say that you can – in fact – git gud at all of them. There was only one boss who I never beat without co-op help (on NG+ their health pool was fucking ridiculous). The rest I managed to beat solo – often quite handily – by my last playthrough. One criticism I still have of bosses is there’s really only a handful of ways to beat them. This is not a game that will produce endless YouTube videos of different ways to take down the big baddies.

I put nearly 200 hours into LOTF and the more I played, the more I appreciated it. The things it suffers from are not unique to it, but are problems that pervade the genre (obtuse narrative progression). I feel sorry for those who went sour on this game at the start, because in its current state Lords of the Fallen is a worthy play for fans of the genre.