The only move she has that is reminiscent of maria is her jump attack. That's it.
Shit, I forgot the Priscilla part as well.
I would take 1 hour of DS content over 1000h of twitcher.
That's still bad value.
But anyway, I don't see anything particularly good. Outright, most items and spells from it stink. The Vilhelm armor is awesome even if the neck is fucked in the same way that the Silver/Black Knight helmets are, making your cranium smaller somehow. And the Millwood Axe is a nice twink weapon. Millwood bow is the one STR Greatbow, too.
And for starters, it HAD to take in a fucking "Painted World of Aria-" you know, the IDEA of most DLC's ever, Souls being no exception, is that they're supposed to not only be a departure from its own game but its series. Okay, that's not an objective flaw, but still. The main game had enough snow, swamps, dinghy towns full of trash mobs punctuated by tougher ones, dark catacombs, and CATHEDRALS. I guess that "forest" is an entirely new concept as for Ds3 is concerned, if you don't count the Crucifixion Woods/Farron Swamp.
Now, how about the layout? Well, that's pretty much the only thing it has going for it for me, and that's hardly much to go on. It only has one real alternate path, the area with the Millwood Knights. And an optional "area", the ravine section. While it all loops back, it's mostly pointless as when it does you've... already beaten the DLC, or most of it. So it's pointless. In that linear path that's left beyond that, it's alright. It's not a bad... 1.5 areas. They have some new enemy designs and cool bits of level designm like the Corvine enemies or the roofs of the town being a part of the level.
Boss wise, Friede is also a decent boss. Just overly familiar, and if playing with your brain on not all that complicated at all. It's just that it's one of the few bosses to whom the game speed seems actually compatible with. Coming second, there's the Gravetender and Sif's Cousin. Incredibly mediocre fight. The NPC does have a unique moveset due to how the weapon works, even if being resisting to being hit in most attack animations is kind of bullshit. Sadly, it's ruined by unnecesarily being player-sized and having little other AI than one of a phantom. And for SOME REASON, he's wearing the shittiest looking mismatched armor. Which seems to have little importance in itself, despite how abysmal it is. If the idea is to downplay it, why is it in such a dramatic arena with such epic music and he doesn't act pathethic at all? Then the wolf comes around, with the same moveset as you fought it eralier, which means you can hurt it up to having 50% less health for the bossfight. I also liked the Pursuer fight idea, but encountering and fighting them as you find them has its own rewards, and it's not among them "makes a shitty boss even more of a pushaover". Anyway, it berserks (power of the abyss? Do I care?) when it has like 10% health left and bye, doggy. Oh, I forgot there were some normal wolves along the Gravetender. There's that.
Lastly, there's the lore, I guess. Apparently this and here is the true ending of the series. Okay.
Oh, and there's the added arena. It's pretty nice to go in and pwn some noobz for a little while. The connectivity and modes are pretty nice. Pity that it's so haphazardly implemented, in a paid piece of content with no apparent deadline. Absolutely NOTHING in the arena rewards anything at all, except cosmetic little medals that only others can see and not yourself. And I'm not sure how those even work. Would it have been THAT hard to get some souls per kill/game creating some sort of score. Would it have been THAT hard for it to be tied to physical objects like all previous arenas, instead of being ENTIRELY menu based, ideally along a Covenant? Apparently not, even if there's the whole left wing of the upper floor at firelink, and plenty more space to fit one or two other NPC's related to it. Hell, if your build depends on items that you'll have to rebuy, if all you want to do is arena fighting, you have to come back out, farm, then come back with supplies. All that disregarding that Ds3 PvP is dogshit in the first place, of course.
If its purpose along the "narrative" of the DLC is to build up the Ringed City, which only does by introducing Gael, well they mostly fucked that one up. At least they give you like 3 Titanite Slabs, I guess.
Ultimately, it's 15 bucks for 2-3 hours. As much as I hate The Ringed City, it's hardly better than it in the value/content sense. Even if you only play for bosses, it's got more. Even if you only play for the lore, there's more. Even if you play just to see waifus, it's got more. At least, if you're a sly fox, you can try beat it under the Steam Refund policy margin and then refund, and use Cheat Engine to give yourself its items, I guess.
). Then the Leonhardt chest, then leonhardt/millwood/pretty much any decent looking set of gloves, and for the legs, as the coat covers most of them, I slapped some heavier armor over that with the Cathedral Knight leggings or any decent looking set of greaves. Faraam leggings is great for this kind of stuff, those leather boots are... 
Weapons wise well that kind of Quality, fancy ass gear. I felt like most fine weapons fit with it, but I particularly liked the Follower Sabre for it.
