no

I know DS2 received all kinds of critique, and some of it is indeed fair ( even though very few things about the game bothered me personally, while actually playing it ), but From Soft also made many great additions, and I thought the bonfire ascetic system was one of the best new features. Being able to fight boss opponents multiple times during the same playthrough was really fun. Seems they scrapped that idea for Dark Souls 3, which is a shame. But at least they added in a few other features from DS2 and even Bloodborne.

The Souls games aren't that hard, it just depends on what type of adventurer you are (comic attached as an example). It's much more about a frame of mind than it is about twitch reflexes. Of course that frame of mind also entails that you see dying once or twice not as reason to rage, but as an opportunity to learn and do better next time.

It's the developers' job to direct the experience, preferably in a way that maximizes the player's enjoyment. The director always said he wanted players to derive satisfaction from the challenge. I imagine if you could just lower the difficulty you'd have the case of 10 people, playing the game all the way to completion on that lower, more confortable, difficulty setting, and coming out of it with a resounding "meh". As it is, with the single difficulty setting, maybe 8 out of those 10 will outright give up, but the other two will find that it's not too hard for them, as they might have thought, that they enjoy the challenge, and love the game for it. The developers might very well be wrong here, but I'm certain this is not a decision they've taken lightly.

Besides, the game is about learning, so I find it very fitting that the ways in which you can make the game easier involve you learning about the world and the systems, and manipulating them in your favor. Such as all the things CharlesGrey listed. Also, I believe there is a covenant in DS2 that makes enemies continue spawning, I'm not certain though, I never got around to DS2.
I actually bought Bloodborne a couple os weeks ago and am aiming for a platinum trophy in it. I don't remember how they were in past Souls games, but I was surprised by how easy the trophies are here. You get all of them by just exploring and seeing all the game has to offer. I was planning on doing two playthroughs back to back with two different builds. All it'd take is finishing a third time and getting the third and final ending and that's it, so I thought "might as well".

The only other game I ever did this in was Assassin's Creed 2 way back when, and considering how I've soured on that series in the intervening years, I was welcoming a game that would knock it off that particular pedestal.

In Demon's Souls the trophies weren't particularly difficult to obtain either ( well, aside from the game itself being hard enough ), but some of them required heavy grinding/farming for weapon upgrade materials.

And DS2 had some sick optional challenges, but I don't remember if they were tied to achievements/trophies. As much as I like the games, attempting something like a zero death run through the entire game would drive me nuts.

Well, I haven't played Demon's Souls in years but upgrading weapons sounds like an achievement it would have. Bloodborne has it too, but it only asks to fully upgrade a single weapon, and they all use the same upgrading materials. Blood. As you might have guessed. So getting that trophy is practically a natural part of any playthrough. They definitely stripped the formula down to basics in that game, but in a good way.

I pretty much was expecting a no death run to be one of the achievements, that's what surprised me so much.

Directing doesn't mean limiting, however, and I feel the director here is all about "play it my way or don't play". Hey, it's their game and they can do whatever they want with it, and I certainly am not entitled or supposed to enjoy every single game out there; but the whole thing came accross to me as patronizing, heavy handed and seriously annoying. I personaly believe that giving the player options to customize their experience is ultimately a good thing, you can always set up the defaults to what you think will give you maximum enjoyment or incetivize it in some way. But hey, this approach appears to have worked for them. My congratulations. I won't play though.

I think the witcher 1 was really good. the witcher 2 tried to copy the combat system of dark souls-like games that's why it sucks compared to the witcher 1.
the witcher 3 is more of the same of the witcher 2... good story, bad action-like combat system.
Drm-free is good but when you fail to delivery a real sequel is worst.... the witcher 1 is one of the best RPG ever made.... the witcher 2 and 3 are strange action-RPG ibrid.

Dark souls is born like an action/arcade game... Dark Souls 1 was a good unfinished action game. the combat system and the level design is perfect but the lack of the story (and the stupid lore) was really bad.
Also I think it was easy because in the end you know how to move and it is really difficult to die... there is no real strategy in Dark Souls, you just need to move with a pattern.
Dark Souls 3 change nothing because the stupid lore got many people.... they only add mana (that is just an old working feature from previuos games). It is still easy, it still use good level design, it still got a good action/arcade combat system.
Drm in this series is bad, but since I can play it for free with steam family I just don't care this time. Still I will not buy this game.

it's true. developers often cast a narrow eye at someone wanting to use keyboard and mouse.

I can't warm up to Dark Souls. The combat feels very clunky.

I feel like the clunk is a massive part of its charm. There's a huge sense of physicality to every action you perform, and your character feels about as heavy as you'd expect when wearing a full suit of armor. The enemies move with a similar sort of weightiness, which allows you to predict their attacks and respond accordingly.

It seems Gamespot picked up on the DS3 issues:

https://youtu.be/q4i5SjZm_VI?t=2m7s

Indeed. The reason I gave up on both Dark Souls 1 and 2.

Some people call it clunky, others ( myself included ) would call it the best Action-RPG combat system in existence. Funny how that works. I've played my share of Action-RPGs and Action-Adventures, and none of them had a combat system with as much tactical depth, subtleties and realism as the Souls series.

Agreed, I hope games in the future can take inspiration from the Souls formula, and maybe even apply it to other genres.