There's a lot to like about this game, I loved the atmosphere and level design in particular.
I liked some of the bossfights, my favourites were father Gascoigne and the final boss (not the secret final boss, I didn't get that ending), the other bosses mostly ranged from good to okay in my opinion (Micolash is the exception to this as his fight was miserable).
For me the chalice dungeons actively made the game worse, without them I would easily give this game an 8/10, they're just boring and repetitive to me and the more difficult ones just felt more annoying than anything else to me.
The gameplay also felt solid overall, most of the general combat felt good, but I do feel like the dodge when you're locked on is a little slow to start up. This made some attacks feel unreactable with the delay between inputting dodge and the I-frames actually coming out, I got frustrated by this a good amount over my playthrough.
I also have some issues with the health vial system, because you permanently run out of them if you use too much, things like poison swamps are more obnoxious than ever because of the health lost from poison. Sometimes I got close to beating a boss only to lose too many health vials and have to grind for more instead of being able to retry and learn the bossfights. It also doesn't help that your blood echoes that you need to buy more healing items with are lost upon dying, so you have to just stop fighting the boss to farm more heals. Also the cost of blood vials increases over the course of the game, which makes this problem last a little later into the game than it otherwise would've. Thankfully this mostly goes away in the late game, where you're able to stock more and more over the course of the game to the point that you are unlikely to run out even after spending 60 on one fight.
With all that being said, when this game feels good to play, few games can compare to the feeling of playing it, the DLC is also really good and worth playing.
I liked some of the bossfights, my favourites were father Gascoigne and the final boss (not the secret final boss, I didn't get that ending), the other bosses mostly ranged from good to okay in my opinion (Micolash is the exception to this as his fight was miserable).
For me the chalice dungeons actively made the game worse, without them I would easily give this game an 8/10, they're just boring and repetitive to me and the more difficult ones just felt more annoying than anything else to me.
The gameplay also felt solid overall, most of the general combat felt good, but I do feel like the dodge when you're locked on is a little slow to start up. This made some attacks feel unreactable with the delay between inputting dodge and the I-frames actually coming out, I got frustrated by this a good amount over my playthrough.
I also have some issues with the health vial system, because you permanently run out of them if you use too much, things like poison swamps are more obnoxious than ever because of the health lost from poison. Sometimes I got close to beating a boss only to lose too many health vials and have to grind for more instead of being able to retry and learn the bossfights. It also doesn't help that your blood echoes that you need to buy more healing items with are lost upon dying, so you have to just stop fighting the boss to farm more heals. Also the cost of blood vials increases over the course of the game, which makes this problem last a little later into the game than it otherwise would've. Thankfully this mostly goes away in the late game, where you're able to stock more and more over the course of the game to the point that you are unlikely to run out even after spending 60 on one fight.
With all that being said, when this game feels good to play, few games can compare to the feeling of playing it, the DLC is also really good and worth playing.