So ds2 is an amazing game and probably my favourite of the trilogy and sure it gets a lot of hate, especially from people who expected it to be a copy of ds1 and were disappointed, but this doesn't mean that the game doesn't have its flaws... What do you think are the real flaws of ds2? I'll start:

Level design is somewhat lacking or shallow: lots of areas seem empty or too linear and sometimes shortcuts don't make sense or aren't present, huntsman's copse for example has a useless shortcut unlocked by dropping the tree down but lacks a shortcut for the executioner's chariot boss. Areas like the first part of iron keep, black gulch or the first part of shaded woods are too linear in my opinion and often you miss that feeling of getting lost that you got in ds1.

Weapon's moveset are too similar: this complain comes from someone who has more than 3k hours in ds2 (vanilla and scholar combined) so it might not matter for you but imo too many weapons have the same overall moveset, for example there's not a single mace with a unique moveset (except for mace of the insolent which has the same r1 moveset but can cast with r2 so it doesn't really count imo), when you replay the game so much you end up just choosing the weapon with the highest dps of its class, or the one which is easiest to upgrade or find early game.
Let's keep talking about weapons: slash weapons are kinda underpowered compared to thrust and blunt weapons with few exceptions (talking about pve of course), almost every boss is best dealt with a blunt weapon, also scaling doesn't matter as much with such a powerful infusion system and often is just better to meet the base requirements for the weapon and infuse it with some element. Also the tracking on your pg is often awful, making some weapons even worse and overall it feels like in this game movesets don't matter as much as other souls games (except when they are op as in rapier type weapons).

Bad npcs: this one is really marginal but quests are luckluster and shallow.