"Blah blah dark souls mods"
Well there's your problem. You need exactly 2 mods. Ever. DSFix, which gets the game running at 1080p, and DSCFix, which lets the game prioritize your friends for summons. That's it.
The game plays amazingly. It's not a hack and slash -- it's something more akin to Monster Hunter (Though 10x smoother and less clunky). The -entire game- is built on punishment. Everything from level design, how it handles death, the story's themes, everything.
Including the controls. Once you start making an attack, you are committed. Until that attack is done, you can do nothing, except some slight aim adjustment of it. It's not a character action game, you can't dodge out of everything. If you make an attack at a bad time, you're going to be punished for it. So "felt like ass" really isn't doing the game justice. You're right, the game doesn't play like smooth butter. That's part of what makes it so good.