tl;dr Probably the most mechanically polished of the Souls games, but if you want a solid PvP experience, get Dark Souls 2 instead. 8/10

Pros:
- Runs in HD at 60 fps, with only a couple notable areas with frame drops
- Combat with a good mix between methodical and fast-paced, punishing your mistakes but rewarding your risks
- Greatly detailed lore and story, but still manages to put gameplay first
- Absolutely drop-dead gorgeous environments, characters, and animation
- High-quality voice acting
- Two DLCs that actually add content to the game
- The addition of weapon arts to mix up combat if you choose
- Rewarding difficulty, with a high sense of accomplishment as your skills grow to meet the expectations of the game.
- No micro transactions.
- Easily the best co-op experience in the Dark Souls series - playing with passwords lets you play with any of your friends, so you can actually reliably enjoy the game together without any setbacks such as 'Oh I'm 3x your level,' with said friend being scaled down to compensate.

Cons:
- When frames do drop, they drop HARD. 5-20 FPS in a couple zones - but it's usually not in combat zones. Usually.
- Build diversity is lacking - magic lacks the punch from previous games, and only has a few spells worth using. Magic builds can work if you spec in to them enough, but it's very very risky. Same goes for any build that isn't a "quality" build - a build with balanced Strength and Dexterity. Slow weapons are punished more often than rewarded, losing to even common straight swords in DPS, stamina consumption, stagger ability, and basically everything but swing arc.
- Dismal PvP. Again, quick, high-damage straight sword and curved sword builds are often rewarded the most. Matchmaking is ok, but if you invade (as opposed to being summoned for PvP) chances are that, due to the system prioritizing high population worlds, you will end up in a 3v1 situation.
- Low covenant diversity. A covenant in Dark Souls is essentially a 'faction,' where each one has a specific goal in the game - often such as successful invasions, or collecting a specific item to turn in, and the like. However, in DS3, all the covenants start to blend together rather quickly - two covenants are identical in every respect, and even share the same reward pool, whereas one covenant exists just to summon people from those two covenants. Two more covenants are mechanically identical, but don't share progress and just invade in different zones. The designated "PvP" covenant has no special perks or effects on your PvP, whereas the traditionally Co-op covenant can now level by invading as well. The only covenants that are really unique are both secret covenants, one of which is rather well hidden unless you look it up on the wiki, and the other which is only accessible in the late game after you beat the hardest boss in the game.

Don't get me wrong - this game is fantastic, and I definitely recommend it. However, I felt the need to expand on what is wrong with the game, as to a newcomer, just saying 'covenants suck lol' wouldn't mean anything to them. I highly recommend both DLC, although Ashes of Ariandel moreso just so you understand a bit of what's going on in the Ringed City - it's kind of a short DLC overall, whereas Ringed City is fantastic. Just make sure you understand what kind of difficulty to expect as you go in, and you'll be fine.