The vast majority of the bosses are mediocre to begin with, then they’re each repeated half a dozen times at least, which definitely doesn’t help them look good. Even several major story bosses like Godrick, Margit, Mohg, and Godfrey aren’t safe from being repeated.
The side dungeons are basically all the same and just end with one of the aforementioned bad bosses. The open-world itself is wholly uninteresting to explore because you know all of the side dungeons suck ass and it lacks the killer level design of From Software’s previous games. Finally, the late-game is extremely rushed and severely lacking in quality, it straight up swan dives after Leyndell.
It’s definitely good, but is it a 10/10, flawless, masterpiece, gold standard for the genre that people should be raving about for decades to come? No shot.
That honour goes to Dark Souls II.