A good game with some minor drawbacks.
I believe this game would suit both people familiar with the franchise and new comers as i too was new to the series having now only played DS2 and DS3 i do believe a person without any prior knowledge of the game could pick it up and enjoy the experience.
The game offers fresh and new environments besides the typical dark corridors and rooms of DS2 and a more vamped up weapon customization system allowing great combinations of weapons and mods making almost anybodies weapon combination differ from yours.
The Game had good pacing and did not feel very grindy as i found in the previous one towards the later half of the game, i only experienced this in the optional missions which did all really have the same feel but in some different environments.
A big drawback that i found with this one was that it sort of lost the "scary feel"of the previous game, granted i do not have surround sound and therefore have not expierenced the game in this element, however the game did have a lack of "jump out" moments and scares, also there was clearly a drop in violence in the "dies" of your character and lack of genuine scares/horror, which was dissapointing.
I cannot comment on co-op as i have not yet played this mode, but overall there were little things added which game the game some flavor.
Overall this game is a good game, entertaining to play and worthy of the series.