Cons

Performance

Progression

Emptiness

Mixed[[/h1]
- Without spoiling, there are elements of the DLCs story that felt lacking or disappointing. Overall I loved how it expanded the world and answered some questions you may have had from the base game, but the main story itself feels like it falls short of the base game.

- Maybe I'm better at the game after playing through a couple times, or maybe being a bit overleveled and making sure I found as many of the mandatory upgrade items as possible before challenging any bosses made things easier, but I didn't actually find most of the bosses to be terribly irritating. Unlike the base game where several bosses had moves I couldn't figure out how to dodge without consulting the wiki (and Malenia has two), I only remember two bosses in this game I had that issue with. But I can't say I had fun fighting most of the bosses, part of which I'll blame on the progression system making it difficult to tune them properly, and partly on some of them having wonky mechanics or arenas that made their fights less enjoyable than they might otherwise have been,
There's also several non-boss enemies scattered throughout the map that have movesets more comparable to bosses and heightened healthpools compared to regular enemies that can present an interesting challenge, but I found myself avoiding them most of the time, and when I did fight them I generally didn't find the combat rewarding (largely due, once again, to the progression system.
But combat isn't all bad, and when I was tuned properly for an area (which oftentimes meant "all the way up"), I did find it enjoyable to figure out how to dispatch the enemies most efficiently, and the new gear can be fun to use, even if I found myself mostly using what I'd brought over from the base game.

- The lore in this DLC is amazing. I won't spoil anything, but several areas in this game despite their general emptiness contain massive lore dumps. In contrast to what I said in the "cons" section about emptiness, there are several areas in the DLC that I'll revisit just because of the lore (and because they look cool.)

- The DLC is beautiful. The areas, enemies, and weapons are all very well designed (aesthetically) and at least from a visual perspective I can't think of any that really feel out of place or underwhelming. Between the look and new mechanics of some of the new loot I'm already formulating ideas for some fresh playthroughs.

- While the progression system almost makes this moot outside some upgraded talismans, there is lots of loot scattered throughout the DLC. WIth my build I didn't get to test most of it, but what I did test was a lot of fun (a couple things even made it into my regular loadout), and as I mentioned I'm planning some new builds for fresh playthroughs.

- The DLC is smaller and shorter than the base game, so there are fewer characters, and fewer chances to interact with them, but there are some standouts even compared to the base game. My one complaint here is that I wish there were more characters we had the opportunity for repeated interaction with.

You may be wondering why I gave this a positive review, given that so much of it focused on the negatives or the mixed components. The reason is that I ultimately enjoyed my experience with the DLC. Did I enjoy it as much as the base game? No, but considering that I don't think there's a AAA game worth buying since 2020 other than Elden RIng, that's not exactly surprising. Did I get my money's worth out of it? Not yet, but I fully expect to be playing both the base game and the DLC for years to come.

If you're hesitant on this DLC, wait. FromSoft has already stated they plan on making balance and (i think) content patches that should improve on my biggest complaints (and they already made one adjusting the scaling of the progression system that should help quite a bit.)
If you're dying to play more Elden Ring, go ahead and grab the DLC. If nothing else there's more loot to freshen up the gameplay for an NG+ run in the base game.