A problem I have with Realistic Difficulty

For those who don't know, Realistic Difficulty causes next to no checkpoints, enemy AI is tough, no UI, and you get 2 to 3 shot on the tougher enemies.

Now I have no issue with these, so far it has seemed fair. However, the thing that bugs me is how while you get 2 to 3 shotted, most enemies are now walking tanks. I suppose my complaint is that it is called Realistic, but the shirtless vikings still take so many swings to bring down. The particular level that brought this up for me was 1-5, where you are Mercy sneaking through Viking-town. I made it all the way until the end, where I fought the final Viking (Whose AI is turned up) for a solid 2 minutes before dying in 3 hits because of some mistimed parries into his unblockable. This was only because of his absurd damage absorption that it lasted so long.

What do you guys think of this? Am I alone on this or just nitpicky?