first of all, check walkthroughs of dark souls to be sure it's your thing

second, i had to think about it and i thought that you probably should start from witcher 1

bad thing is it's 5 years old, but so is fallout 3

the only real bad thing is probably the combat which is a bit slower than in the 2nd one

benefits are all the things that are missing from witcher 2 (apart from the story that you'll miss)

w1 is slightly more whimsical and not so determined to be as completely mature as w2; it has more sense of mystery, more investigation missions, i think more 'diplomacy' missions or whatever you can call em

it also takes time to let you understand what it means to be a witcher and that's very important because that's something very unique for this game

to be a witcher is a bit unlike being any class/hero in other games because it's a matter of several things that wouldn't be paid any attention elsewhere

you can find out about this here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzfFPONyjSw but a better explanation would be how a witcher is basically a hunter who specializes in alchemy

as said in the video, witchers use their encyclopedic herbal knowledge and knowledge of monsters and curses to prepare for each encounter and all that is very well shown in w1 since you're pretty reliant on alchemy (if i still remember right)

in witcher 2 there's something of a 3-5-6 hour prologue, depending on your difficulty, that lets you assimilate the combat first and then get to the typically witcher-like missions, but that might not give you enough of an idea of the essence of the witcher early enough

anyway that's one big reason you should start with 1, it really lets you be there at the center and be a witcher, while W2 deals with a lot of political/conspiracy plots and near all the whimsy, mystery is substituted with this grave seriousness, that takes away from the room for simply being a witcher

in w2 there's also the option of importing your save from w1 so that's something important as well, along with being way more oriented in the story and world

by playing w1 first you'll also get acquainted with some of the characters, some of the factions and so on

caine said the witcher books are better than GOT which i doubt but i imagine them being pretty close considering how solid that world and lore is

i bought w1 the other day and am wondering when to get to it