Dark Souls is so much harder than Demon's Souls. The only truly hard part of Demon's Souls was the Maneater fight, but this game is just ridiculous. I'm having a bunch of fun, though. I may buy the 400 page hardcover guide since it's fairly cheap and the wikis are no good yet. I know the whole point of the game is to explore, but sometimes it's frustrating which makes it less enjoyable.
Well, Dark Souls is an extremely hardcore RPG. Skyrim is a pretty casual RPG. Some elitists like to criticize Skyrim for being a game for console kiddies, casuals, etc. while saying that Dark Souls is going to be a really good game. I don't really care, I've got both pre-ordered and am very much looking forward to both of them. I'm playing through Demon's Souls now and it's very fun.
Or you have the option to not be rude and to say "No thank you, I don't particularly like the direction the developers are taking with that series.". That's what I say when they ask me if I want to pre-order the next yearly iteration of Call of Duty.
If you're an outlaw hiding out in a cave, when you see a person you don't know in the cave (who went past your friends, meaning he killed them) you try to kill the trespasser. I agree with your other points though.
No, but I would try to get in some sort of cover. No, that would be foolish. How good you are at sneaking does not affect how well an enemy notices that his friend, who he was having a conversation with, was just shot and killed with an arrow by you. In my opinion it's not believable in the slightest.
Well, you could do that, but then you run into the problem of humans, elves, etc. walking around in the pitch black darkness, and even talking to their friends/allies. I've run into that with an Oblivion mod and it was really silly.
I am in favor of the new style of leveling. Lots of things in RPGs are fun, but stat managing like there was in Oblivion is not fun at all. I'm glad that they simplified it, and it's really cool that there are perks now.