i've only seen videos, but I can understand that.
the boss roster looks pretty atrocious even compared to the base ds1 and ds2 rosters.
levels look like a mixed bag tbh.
It also just does not have a lot of content, and the quality isn't enough for the lack of quantity.
It's took me 12 hours to beat on my first playthrough and under 30 hours to do literally everything in the game on
both pure white and pure black world tendency. World tendency is a mechanic the other games don't have
but the world changes difficulty depending on how many times you die (gets harder).
12 hours is just not a lot of content for a souls game. For reference, my level 1 fight with Malenia was 19 hours
and across all playthroughs I've probably spent more time fighting her than playing all of DeS which is crazy