DS2 has some terrible design choices like having to put levels into adaptability to make dodge not be shitty, and bullshit gank squads that magically appear out of nowhere to cause cheap deaths that you can only avoid by already dying to them and knowing when/where they're going to happen.
Like in DS3, you can look around and see guys hanging on a wall, or even just their hands or something which rewards you for looking around and being careful. In DS2, you'll go out on a narrow ledge and 5 guys will magically appear and fall out of the sky.
Didn't help the it has a framerate durability bug on launch where your shit would break twice as fast if you played on 60fps.
It's the weakest of the From games, but still easily better than any non-from Soulslike