That's part of my job, prospective. Yes I can tell from the little I tried Dark Souls, then what I saw and heard, that the difficulty goes against basic game design but with an interesting retrieval system that mitigated it, for people with no life thus for whom repetitive overly difficult and unnecessary, unbalanced and punitive combat, is what they call a "challenge" they're proud off.
But I also saw the tactical, puzzle aspect of the combats, with very well designed, varied and interesting/spooky ennemies and overall ambiance/experience. So I'll probably end-up biting with Elden Rings or Demon Soul's if it comes to PC, but with a 15k backlog of amazingly fun and as tactical hack&slash, adventure or straight puzzle games (or even FPS-puzzle and slash like Doom, BPM, Shadow Warrior 3 etc...), I don't give a shit about an overly arduous and punitive game you have the repeat the combats of and loot if you lose it, it's not the 90s anymore (and they had excuses).