I'm probably going to be buying Dark Souls to fill the gap between now and 11/11/11. I do have one question, though, for the people who have already played it, and/or Demon's Souls, whose answer might dictate whether or not I actually do pick it up (apologies if it has been asked before, but I didn't see any recent topics): how hard is the game, in actuality? Is it the sort of difficulty where you can just bang your head against it until you manage to finally kill that damn demon or until you have a moment of clarity ("Oh, there's a door there! Durrrr..."), or is it the sort of difficulty where if you didn't go down the left branch of the skill tree five hours back it's literally impossible to continue no matter what tactic you try?

I guess it's more of the moment of clarity sort of thing.  The game is mostly about being patient, proceeding slowly, thinking carefully about your actions, and always having your shield up.  There's no reloading a previous save or anything like that.  Your actions have consequences and they are permanent.

It's punishing and unforgiving, but it's fair. Every failure you will experience playing it will either be the effect of hastiness, the lack of preparation or carelessness. If you inch your way forward, be on your toes the whole time, try to avoid rushing things and be careful you shouldn't have many problems.

Based on what I've seen, the actual gameplay looks pretty identical to Demon's Souls, which is to say that you can expect enemies to kill you in 1-3 hits and all that (there's plenty of info out there about the kind of game Demon's Souls is, I'm sure you kinda know already). My impression of Dark Souls is that it might be slightly easier to fuck yourself up with a bad build or in a bad situation because it doesn't use a hub world like Demon's Souls did. In Demon's Souls if you realized the enemies you were fighting were too strong you could go somewhere else, farm, grab an item that's good against them and come back later, etc. I'm not sure how Dark is structured but it seems like it may be more difficult to do that sort of thing. Maybe someone with more familiarity can comment on this?

Oh, I should also mention that if you don't like horror games, you might not be into Dark Souls/Demon's Souls.

The Dark Souls QL does a pretty good job demonstrating in what ways the game is difficult, and Vinny and Rorie both spell it out. Like others have been saying, avoid rushing. And, in Demon's Souls, there were definitely moments of clarity I had that made the game much easier. Also, if Dark Souls has it or something like it, use Warding. It reduces physical damage you receive by like 75 percent.

I personally didn't find demons souls to be a very difficult game. The hardest part for me was the first maybe 4 hours of the game where i was still learning the controls and figuring out that I can't just run forward with reckless abandonment. Once I got past the first two bosses I just hit a stride and started beating multiple areas with ease. Now there were probably 2 bosses in the game that gave me a real headache trying to beat but aside from that I didn't find it to be the hellish nightmare everyone told me it was. That said the change to the magic system in dark souls from using a mana bar to cast your spells to having a capped amount of magic usages per bonfire, could make the game much more difficult for me since I relied on magic so heavily during some boss fights. Either way though if your really interested in playing Dark Souls then just play it. I honestly doubt there will be a moment for you where you have a boss encounter that you just cannot beat, resulting in you throwing a controller across the room or something. It's a hard game but it isn't a nightmare.

It's the worst kind of difficulty, where if you fuck up too much you're dead and get sent back to the start of the level. Lose your cool when this happens several times in a row and you're likely to fuck up even more. Welcome to frustrationland!

That said if you're the careful sort you shouldn't have too much of a problem, the game is more punishing than it is difficult. I dunno if the leveling system is the same as Demon's Souls in that regardless what you put your points into you get more defense, but I thought that it was a good system that helped prevent you from completely screwing yourself over. I made a couple of bad choices with my first character while learning but it ended up working out fine.

It's hard in a very fair way. It's black and white as to how and why you died. Whereas your examples, like Halo and such, just artificially buff the difficulty with increased damage to you, increased HP on enemies, impossible numbers etc. For the most part, the "Souls" games, present things in a very fair and honest way.

Its pretty much if you rushing things and being careless is what leads to death quickly. It is all about being patient and understanding your enemy's movements as well as being careful of your environment. If you ever played the first Castlevania, its kinda like that. All about think about your next move using the tools and controls you have.