Which boss are you stuck on MadGamer and what build are you playing?
I actually played through Demons Souls over a series of 4-5 weekends after a friend loaned me his PS3. I've been intending to write a report at the Watch to describe some of my thoughts on it. It's not as punishing as Dark Souls and not near as difficult, but that being said I did play on offline mode to avoid the moronic trolls out there.
You can certainly see the echoes of design in certain moments (the Nexus transmogrifying into Firelink, the shades of Blighttown in the Valley of Defilement and Tower of Latria's lower marsh section) for example.
Speaking of Dark Souls itself though, I'm a little frustrated with the recent update (as of September 2013) as the ruddy thing has utterly disabled DSMFix, which hasn't been updated yet to counter this. If anyone knows of a better fix so that I can use keyboard and mouse again without any glitches, I'd certainly appreciate it. (I'm using the non-steam release)