Yes but the animations were amazing.

If you talk to the Emerald Maiden and the other NPCs in Majula they make it pretty clear that you're to seek out four great souls from powerful enemies scattered across the land. Once you collect each soul the Maiden will guide you to the castle.

It's no more ambiguous than finding the Bells of Awakening in DS1. You know that's what you're supposed to do but it's basically the same concept in DS2. Sure, you get that nifty cutscene letting you know to go to Sen's Fortress but did anyone really see gargoyles bringing you to Anor Lando happening? It's all about discovery and I think DS1 and 2 are pretty similar in that regard.

My opinions on your flaws with the game:

I actually felt similar to you when it came to the armor aspect but that slowly changed after I made several other characters. I kinda felt that my knight was too quick, and then I played a Dex build and thought that my character was all the same, but then I made my Mage. I never seemed to hit the level of mobility that I wanted. One tiny piece of clothe would severely limit my roll animation and speed of my character. Considering she relied on dodging to survive, this made some areas tricky. Eventually, I went back to my knight and holy cow I felt like a tank. I also managed to over burden him to the point where he could only walk, which is something that simply didn't happen in the first game. So I understand the complaint, but it's still there, only a bit more subtle.

As for the difficulty: Yeah... there are some enemies that are complete bullshit. The mummies in the Lost Bastille instantly come to mind. They actually appear a few times later in the game, each time on a narrow bridge that you'll just fly off of. There's also an area that's laughably sadistic. Despite these though, I think Dark Souls II is by far the easiest of the Souls series. You can acquire boss weapons very early on, enemy patterns are simple to get down, and there really aren't any bosses that present too large of a challenge. The mummies can still go screw themselves.

To the atmosphere: It definitely isn't as good as DS1. Not at all. There are bits I've mentioned before of how the world just isn't connected all that well (The Iron Keep is literally nowhere) and it annoys the absolute hell out of me. DS2 would be my favorite Souls game if it wasn't for the world feeling so disconnected. However, the rest of your concerns, I disagree with. You're in Drangleic to find a cure. It doesn't matter if someone tells you that you're going to fail. I don't want to live this undead hell, I'm going to try my damndest to get rid of it. As for the game featuring similar stories and locations/monsters and what have you... yeah, without spoilers, that was intentional and it's actually pretty freaking cool. Go talk to the cat in Majula and really listen to what she has to say.

Finally, yes, like I said, the world is disappointingly disconnected to the point where I don't even get the design of the game. You know that foreboding castle off in the distance? That one you can see from Majula? Yeah, once you have to go there, it's about a 2 minute run from Majula. It doesn't make any sense.

Perhaps. I personally think it was better looking when you simply exposed an enemies break in defense and stabbed them through the midsection while they still stood. Now it's like you just knock them over and they just lie there limp and defeated. It looks lazy to me, but that's just my opinion.

I am, however, a big fan with how backstabs work now. They're rare in PvP and it's much, much harder to exploit that weakness on enemies.

Oh, yeah, it's a little tricky this time around. If you parry the attack the enemy will fall on the ground. Attacking too quickly will just have you strike normally. However, if you wait a second or two until the animation is complete and the enemy is stuck on the ground, you'll go in for a critical attack in which you're stabbing them in the chest while they're helpless.

I don't really like the riposte system in this game compared to Demon's/Dark Souls honestly.

Hmm, well I just did it as a Deprived and had no issues. But then again I parry almost all the enemies so maybe that's why the dagger is in fine condition by the time I reach the bonfire.

The only cutscene that's out of the norm for a Souls game is the one at the beginning with the women during character creation. All the other ones, which are literally all boss introductions, were also in Souls games.

Also, go to Forest of the Fallen Giants. There's no reason for your weapon to be breaking that quickly unless you're battling the knights in Heide's Tower of Flame. Even a crappy dagger will get you all the way to the second bonfire in Forest of Fallen Giants.

Well, unless you joined the Covenant of Champions. That also screws over a lot of new players.

State of Decay is likely the closest thing you'll find to Day Z on the Xbox 360.

@MirkoS77: In Joe's review he discusses how several publications were hyping Titanfall to no end and used pics of IGN's hype machine to prove his point. He then went on to say that many publications handed the game "9s and 10s" while some of IGN's quotes remained on screen.

However, despite showing quotes from IGN's previews (Which c'mon, they were ridiculous: "I had to put the controller down I was shaking from the adrenaline" ... yeah right) he never actually said "IGN gave it a 9"

And despite the .1 increment, the idea is that the game received high praise with ridiculous claims from several websites. IGN gave it an 8.9 and the review itself is glowing, it's hardly critical and that was Joe's point.

So that makes it even sadder that they continued a massive fight over arguing over the .1 decimal.

If they told separate stories in the same universe, great. However, the movies try to adapt or retell the story and it's usually a complete failure. For example, I could forgive the original Resident Evil (in a way) because it had original characters, despite not at all fitting with the canon. It wasn't really until they attempted to bring in Jill and various other characters from the game that it completely fell apart.

Video games often have excellent lore, but the story telling only really works due to the interactivity. So when that's taken away you're left with something lackluster.

But I think there's potential. Tell a Mass Effect story that isn't about Shepard. Tell an Assassin's Creed story that doesn't follow Desmond or any of the Assassins we've already seen.

I don't want to see actors playing Joel and Ellie.