I am happy with it.

I've had a few friends which have complained about it, and I have just told them it's OK, embrace it, keep playing and you'll only get better. This is the problem with their old design is that it was actually discouraging people from trying, because, why? Content wasn't asking you to use your eyes.

and in my opinion it's the perfect difficulty. The mechanics are very simple, and the tells are there, to where all you need to do is keep your eyes about, and you'll eventually get the mechanic and figure out the tell, and it's really done in such a good way that even if you're good, you still need to keep your eyes about you. Some players may not notice the ramp, as I personally think if you have done certain levels of content, then you may grasp mechanics and tells a lot more intuitively to players that haven't dipped their toes in the water, so to speak.

I would say yes and no to the last paragraph though. A lot of the combat content goes hand-in-hand with story-based content. But I do think currently they have the perfect level of difficulty. It's not insurmountable, but you need to keep your eyes about you.