I can understand some of the criticisms of DS2 (especially with the level design), but so far none of it has convinced me.
Convinced you? Of what? You don't believe that the hitboxes are fucked beyond relief, or that SM is a goddamn nightmare for PvPing? You aren't convinced that these are true?
Most of the critics are high strung and emotional like this guy, it doesn't give it a lot of credibility.
No, most critics take their time and explain their problems with the game in the context of it still being a good game. The operative word here is disappointment. Disappointment at what it could have been.
No shit.
More of the same, so to speak - the mechanics are improved,
No, they aren't. For every so-called improvement there is a bafflingly stupid mistake to counter it, and most of the 'improvements' are only of a subjective nature, like making it so you're vulnerable when riposting or backstabbing which really serves no purpose except to make ganking easier and PvE swarms harder. There's some things that are objectively better, like the fixed item upgrade/infusion system so you don't have to grind nearly as much, but then you have the limited number of human effigies in the game unless you farm bonfire ascetics and use those to farm areas, which is all kinds of fucked. White phantoming is confusingly nerfed, since your odds of getting a portion of humanity back from it are piss poor instead of guaranteed on victory. You can white phantom for souls, practice, and life gems, and that's about it. The hitboxes are all kinds of fucked, and there's plenty of other issues that other people have gone into before, like the mistake of having both an estus flask and consumable healing items.
That's a good thing if its well-designed content, and the pacing holds up in spite of the abundance of it. Dark Souls II drags. Hard. You keep reaching areas and wondering, "what the fuck is this place? Is this the final area? What purpose does this location serve to the game's design? Why not just end the game earlier and have this be a side area, rather than a linear string of completely bafflingly unrelated areas?"
It's mostly recycled from DeS and DkS, and not even as good as there. Royal Rat Authority, pls go. Heide Knights, you'll never be as cool as the Black Knights. Even then, the actually original enemies are all just guys with weapons, like minotaurs, gyrm warriors, and mastodons. Super creative!
As far as the lore go - it's not like as if you thought the lore of DS1 made any sense the first time you played the game.
What, you think people haven't played DS2 enough times to figure out the lore yet? Are you stupid or something?
It always was about myth - meaning, it always was vague and open to interpretation.
What's your point? There's a difference between good vagueness and bad vagueness, and even then, the primary issue with DkS2 is that the theme it tries to go for isn't actualized in the game's design, nor its lore. Half of the lore is entirely derivative of Dark Souls 1, like the endless cycles and all that bullshit, to justify the fact that the entire plot of the game is near identical to the prior game.
This isn't a Dungeons and Dragons setting or something.
It very well could be. Dark Souls is a high-fantasy concept with a few dark twists. Pretending that it's actually different from any other fantasy world is silly - it has magic, dragons, monsters, zambies, chronologically inconsistent weapons and armor floating around, blah blah blah. The thing that sets it apart is its focus on characters, not events or locations, that you don't really get with any of the DnD settings. Even most item lore is about characters, like foolish pyromancers who went too far and were consumed by their own flame. Even then, it manages to give a very clear portrayal of what Lordran was, as a kingdom, and what it has become without its king. In a nutshell, Dark Souls is a DnD setting done well.
