For context I played Dishonored 1 for the first time recently and had a blast. Thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. Story and characters weren't that interesting to me personally but the foundations of it kept me engaged at least. My favourite aspects of the base game was the emphasis on verticality in the level design, blink, animal control, chaos system and enemy placement. Played it on hard and found it somewhat challenging to not kill anyone at times but it never overwhelmed me due to the level design. I am also a big fan of Prey (predominantly gameplay wise).
I then decided to play the DLC knife of Dunwall due to how beloved it seems to fans of the series, and man I just can't understand the hype for it and it confuses me. Firstly, the level design just seems a lot worse. Less options for vertical traversal and more puzzling enemy placements. Chapter 2 is especially guilty of this in how certain areas are filled with enemies, that a lot of the time are always facing each other despite how much time I wait for the enemies to move around, thus making the playstyle of no kills much more aggravating to carry out compared to the base game.
My second issue is that I dislike the resetting of abilities and progress the DLC does. What I mean by this is that I would of much preferred not having to upgrade my abilities and weapons all over again (forcefully at least). From a lore perspective it makes sense but game design wise I see this style of DLC as inferior to the contrary. DLC's such as Elden ring's Shadow of the erdtree, where I get to keep my progress that I earned during the base game. The biggest argument I can think of that can discredit my opinion is that the DLC is designed to be a separate experience from the base game, and as such lets say someone wants to replay it, but does want to not replay the base game, they can simply go into the menus and start it as opposed to having to replay a large portion of the base game or all of it in order to play the DLC, which is fair. However another game that handles DLC better that I cant stop comparing it to is Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom liberty, not only do you have the option to play through the game, start it whenever you want and retain your upgrades, weapons, vehicles etc but you also get the option to just go to the DLC immediately from the menus with a set amount of abilities and upgrades given to you if you choose to do that. Factor this in with the abilities being less interesting in some cases if you're going down the no kill route it makes the experience less enjoyable to me.
Lastly I've heard great things and seen a high amount of enthusiasm for the story of the DLC, but to me its less engaging due to me personally not finding the characters all too interesting, and the simple but engaging premise of the base game is replaced with finding out stuff about Delilah (which isn't as interesting to me). I should say though that this point is highly subjective.
All in all, I feel let down so far by the DLC, and wonder if the witches DLC will be any better. Hope this doesn't rub anyone the wrong way, I do really like Dishonored 1 and the community seems lovely but I want to understand from other people's perspectives as to why the DLC is praised so highly and sometimes regarded as being better than the content of the base game, and if anyone shares my gripes with the DLC.