When I first heard that Dark Souls 2 was coming out, I was extremely excited, I probably watched the original trailer 5 times in a row. When I heard that they would make it more accessible than the original, I became apprehensive. A large part of what made the first Dark Souls so interesting and fun was the lack of direction and the need to learn the games mechanics inside & out if you wanted to get anything meaningful done. This sequel still has some of that learning curve, but not nearly as much because there's a big carry over of knowledge if you played the first, in fact the game as a whole feels like a really long expansion to Dark Souls.
If you liked Dark Souls a lot, like myself, having more of it sounds like a really awesome thing, and it is...mostly. Having made myself a "Souls" game veteran by completing multiple play-through's of Demon and Dark Souls I was mentally prepared for this sequel, so prepared in fact, it felt like it was detrimental to my experience playing the game. Where the original Dark Souls constantly surprised with unique boss encounters and engagingly difficult situations (Blighttown, Anor Londo, etc.), this game quickly became a rote grind as I quickly hopped from boss to boss, most of which felt like tank-and-spank bosses with no real trick to the fight. I don't know if this experience is common with players who played the previous games to great lengths like me, but it left me kind of disappointed. Simply, I wish I had died more often; I wanted the bosses to kick my ass, and they didn't.
Where Dark Souls 2 does improve on though is the technical aspects. Dark Souls 1 crashed numerous times on me when I played it for the 360, Blighttown at times had been unplayable. Then the PC version came a long and that was a sad affair that practically required a community patch-fix to play decently. None of these problems are present here, the game looks beautiful and plays sharp. I found myself stopping multiple times to admire the vistas and landscapes that give the world of Dark Souls 2 a distinct personality. Then it dawned on me, the main character to the Souls games isn't you the hollow, it's the World (Drangleic in this game); and they might just be some of my favorite characters of all time.
In the end, the gameplay is largely unchanged, and the bosses are rather on the weak side, with a few exceptions. If you really loved Dark Souls, you'll enjoy the sequel as well. The game took me about 24 hours to beat, which felt a little on the long side, but that's because I don't have as much time on my hands to play games as I used to. If you have any interest, go ahead and pick this game up on a sale or something.