Things I hate the most in modern games are cutscenes. There's ton of them and they make game look like a bloody movie, and I don't like that. Also, story sucks in most AAA games and I'm always skipping cutscenes.
But I must admit that I would love to see Blizzard style cutscenes and a lot of them in Dark Souls.
NPCs do share some info with you, there are some cutscenes but I had to read wiki for lore.
It's sad that a world like in this game, actually the best since Diablo/Diablo II (Diablo 3 is kiddy crap), isn't explained through high quality cutscenes.
Best depiction of hell ever in video games. With more work put into story and characters, this could be pretty decent movie.