It's simply amazing. From the very first steps it had me hooked. I've now played around 30 hours, and I feel like I'm just getting started. The gameplay and the controls are fantastic, and the atmosphere is intense.

When I played this through the first time I ignored the online aspects, as I had done with Demon Souls. I didn't want something that would make it any harder than it already was. I leveled up to over 100 before finishing, and some of it required a huge amount of repetition.

Few games leave me as torn as Dark Souls . The game is incredibly hard - almost to the point where it is soul crushing. At the same time, there's a fun sense of achievement weaving throughout the entire game. Every death is a painful chance to learn something new about the game's mechanics.

Those of you that are over 30 years of age might remember those games, back in the 90's where it took a lot of patience and an extra stack of coins to pay for the extra lives at the arcade.

amazing

Game.....of......the.....year!!!

The spiritual successor to Demon's Souls, Dark Souls provides extremely rewarding encounters and a devilishly difficult learning curve.

Difficulty; environments and encounters that completely engross the player; exciting combat; play time that runs to more than 50 hours

Difficulty; occasional bugs; camera can occasionally fail the player; occasional graphical problems in busy areas

Some slow-down may happen when there are some many things on the screen, but the animation, texture, frame-rate and the locations look really beautiful! The sound effects are pretty cool and they fit everyhting perfect. Simply put. The soundtrack is also pretty epic! Into gameplay.

Dark Souls is the spiritual successor to From Software's surprise hit, Demon's Souls . Keeping the original game's dark tone, difficulty, and intense combat, Dark Souls manages to create a unique experience quite unlike anything on the market, even its predecessor.

Dark Souls should need little introduction. Even if you somehow managed to miss out on From Software's stellar spiritual predecessor, Demon's Souls , you probably did not escape having your gaming mettle questioned by Dark Souls' "Prepare to Die" marketing campaign over the past few months.

Pure gameplay without many frills; An extremely satisfying single player campaign augmented by the most unique use of coop and competitive multiplayer around

Excellent art and sound design marred by occasional but potentially game-breaking  frame rate and clipping issues