Pretty cool world at first, but the excessive amount of backtracking you have to do, even with warp unlocked, becomes more tedious than anything. The bosses are largely quite bad, and even the few that aren't (O&S /Artorias/Kalameet ) were still too easy to feel engaging. Not much to say about the 2nd half that hasn't been said already, and the lack of music also makes the game feel empty (and not in a good way). At the very least, though, I'd recommend trying DS1 since it's become the template for a genre (moreso than DeS) and still offers an incredibly engaging and rewarding experience in the first half.