Okay, so over the weekend I played a fair amount of the Monster Hunter World Beta, and I enjoyed a it quite a bit. There's not a massive amount of content, basically three hunts that you can play solo or multi.
As someone who's never played a Monster Hunter title ever, there were a few things that kinda bewildered me. Like, you're accompanied by a small anthropomorphic cat (at least in solo) that can heal you and attack the monsters. Because erm...Japan?
It doesn't really explain the weapons very much. And some of them are pretty weird. (For example, there's a big 'hunting horn' thing that you play buff songs on while attacking the enemy...couldn't get my head round that at all). The large weapons make Dark Souls' Ultra Greatswords seem sprightly. In fact the combat seems very slow in general. I suppose 'measured' is the correct word. You need to be patient and wait for openings.
The monsters are large and imaginatively designed. You can 'break' parts of them, and if you do enough damage to a leg, they start limping. There's also environmental hazards you can use against them, getting thrm trapped in vines, or the memorable moment an online party I was in led the monster to a crew of cat people who attacked it with ropes and and pulled it down, allowing loads of free hits.