What kind of hipster bullshit opinion is this?
Dark Souls 2 was about a thousand times better than DS1. I'd say better than or comparable to Demon's Souls, though I still preferred how levels were done in Demon's with the hub world but eh. One seamless world does feel more grand, I guess. Content wise DS2 does blow both games out of the water though.
As far as balance and multiplayer went, they pretty much aced it in 2. Soul Memory was a fuckup but it wasn't bad enough to kill anything. DS1 had abysmal weapon balancing with the same weapons appearing over and over in pvp. They never really bothered to fix that. The world was alright but I always felt it was a bit small and for an open world, it never felt that open. Armors were pretty boring, they looked fine but there wasn't that many good sets and not that much variety. DS2 has all sorts of crazy sets that are viable for a whole host of different reasons. Pretty large weapon variety with tons of viable pvp weapons. Way, way more multiplayer interaction. DS1 I played online the whole time and entirely forgot about the multiplayer because it was just never a thing.
If you're crying because DS2 was "more of the same" then you might want to look up what a proper sequel is. If I wanted something else, i'd go play SOMETHING ELSE. When I play Dark Souls 2 and 3, I want more of the same. I want more weapons, more armor, more enemies, more bosses, more abilities. Some changes, tweaks and upgrades are fine, but more of the same is exactly what a sequel is for.