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Stratohero, I think you gave up too early. It took me around 10h of play time, more or less 50/50 split on story vs. arena to actually get the feel for combat. Mind, I actually consider myself quite terrible at these kinds of games. I probably died more than 100 times in Dark Souls before getting to Anor Londo.
I also think Exanima is a bit more difficult than DS, but also much fairer. There are no crazy monsters that don't operate under same laws you do. There are no bad hitboxes - not sure if it's pixel perfect, but definitely close. The skill system is also a very small part of the gameplay IMO - it's 80% player skill, 20% character, so you can't make a "broken build".
Combat is very, very different from anything else. It is really all about timing, and precision, and much less about speed or being able to press 5 buttons at a same time.