Yes, after playing several of its imitators, I finally got around to the original, only 10 years late!
After all the hype, I found it… underwhelming. My biggest takeaway is that the Soulslike imitators vastly improved upon and streamlined the formula, which isn’t terribly surprising. Dark Souls itself feels like it has a lot of design principles pulling in opposite directions, as well as a lot of tedious cruft that its imitators wisely trim.