It started off so well. Intriguing story, beautiful environment, good gameplay, and it stayed this way until I reached Drangleic Castle. Of course there were a few small irritations beforehand, such as glitching into the side of the arena after being hit by the Smeltor Demon but those were petty things that paled in comparison to the rest of the game.
My first major issue was being shut out of Drangleic Castle after dying before reaching the first bonfire inside. At first I was just confused because the opening of the gate via golems seemed to be a convoluted process in the first place. However I soon found out that I had (at that time at least) encountered a game breaking glitch. I wasn't too bothered though, I was really enjoying the game at this point so I made a new character and started again. This didn't save me from the glitch fest of a castle though and the next time I loaded the game I found I was locked in the room with the bonfire - with no way to open the door. My rage quit lasted several months this time, until a patch came out. I still started over again though because the break resulted in my already limited skills becoming even more rusty.
Still, I got back into the game eager to progress only for things to become.....confusing (spoilers from here on). I went and spoke to the Queen who for some reason felt no need to explain anything except her own name, including the location or whereabouts of her husband so I had to rely on the game strategically leading me there. At one point I thought I would end up in China because it took so long to finally find him. When I did he was just wondering around hollowed out, so my character took his ring. I was debating whether or not to kill him but I thought there has to be some more story here somewhere, so I left him be. Luckily I remembered there had been some gates that asked me to produce the kings symbol, so off I went.
Next place I found was a circular room with an igloo and a boss fight. After some time I managed to defeat them.......only for sweet FA to happen. Very confused by this point. Went round opening gates until I managed to find the Dragon Shrine. I think at this point I felt gameplay was taking a hit. I was bored, frustrated and instead of clever design I think the game developers compensated by using more enemies to wade through. Still I found the ashen mist heart and went to the first place I could think of - the dead dragon in Brightstone Cove. With much anticipation I entered the dragon's memory to pick up a soul, wonder around a barren wasteland and Leave. Entered some Giant's memories, picked up some items, wondered around a bit more. Got stuck and confused again.
After significant amount of time, during which I was getting more annoyed/bored/frustrated by the second, I decided to explore the igloo room again, thinking there wouldn't be a boss fight in there for no reason and I must have missed something. I go back to find another mist door and another boss for some reason. I fight the boss, which in my opinion was terrible, especially for the final boss. There was no interesting strategies or movesets. It felt like the good ol' we'll use status effects to make it more difficult. To top it off my final visual was the camera looking up my character's skirt (word of warning - don't wear Agdaynes Leggings to the final fight). I was left thinking what the hell just happened? Why did I spend so much time going into the giant's memories? How did that affect the last boss fight at all? Was there any meaningful questline for Vendrick? What is this igloo place? Another rage quit.
So sometime later I decide, perhaps stupidly, to download the dlc. Hoping that it would provide more insight into the story and to be completely fair, the game is still good compared to the vast majority of games on the market. Maybe not storywise but still......
So the first thing that happens - I get some new keys in my inventory and.....nothing. Not willing to waste time, I google where I'm supposed to go and my first stop is the Shrine of Winter. Starts out good. NPC thats there to help with the first boss does the opposite as I can't tell who the boss is targetting, but still that's easily resolved by not summoning her and the boss is a pretty good fight. Also encountered a devious white phantom which I enjoyed for it's originality but then the ice rats happened. When you have minor enemies - rats - in the game which are more challenging than a boss battle, it begins to ring alarm bells about level design.
It doesn't get better. Find the source of yet another hippy female voice, only to discover is Alsanna (no idea who she is). I then have to recruit some knights to go fight the boss battle. This boss doesn't work. It's easy enough to defeat the charred knights but if you die on the main boss, having to go back and fight them all over again is just tedious. This is the point at where my Dark Souls 2 journey has ended. I can put up with poor storyline if everything else is good but now I have reached by bored/confused limit. The game has ceased to be enjoyable.
To sum up, this isn't a terrible game. There are many reviews that sing it's praises so I don't feel the need to go into too much detail about all that. However in my opinion it's the weakest in the series. The lack of story and direction begin to directly impact on gameplay because wondering around lost, with no real emotional investment to see the ending, just isn't fun. Neither is having to rely on google for help.