My feelings on books 2 and 3 are complicated; but I hated book 2 because I saw the ending coming from a hundred pages in ("ohhh, this is gonna be tragic AF, right?") and I just in general found 2 and 3 to be much darker than I like. I mean, those books are both SO dark.
But dark doesn't mean they were badly written, or even badly plotted, and both books still had moments of incredible beauty, or stunning revelation, or twisted WTF that made me gawk.
It's a good series; I just think Steven Erikson is too mean to his characters. ;)