There's been a lot of harsh criticism on this game lately that I feel is pretty unwarranted.
I thought the game was great the free running was incredibly detailed actually having to look for a handhold and then having an animation showing you grab that specific handhold was just amazing.
I thought the fighting mechanic had a lot of depth, enemies don't just stand around, they wait for an opening and they
will attack you in the back. sure you can just keep pressing X to win but then you miss out on great Combo/Counter kills, throw reversals and ground kills. these took a lot of practice to pull off but were very rewarding.
The missions were repetitive, but you dodn't have to do them all to get to the main target.
The scenes in the lab, if you used them right, reveal a lot of the back story.
I thought the A.I was really good. Kill a guy and throw him off the roof and you can hear the reaction from the people below and guards will be on the look out for you doing something suspicious.... stealth kill a guy in the street and you have a little time to blend before it gets discovered..... climb up a building and people are like "what the hell is that guy doing?".... jump off a building and land in a crowd and everyone just stops and stares at you... it's very cool.
I hated that water killed you instantly I understand its the desert and they probably dont have access to swiming pools, but seriously this guy can climb a 4 story building and can't tread water?
also if he can't swim why make it possible to jump in the water? most frustrating part of this game was trying to jump from pole to pole in the water, practically impossible.
I wish you had a sneak option because it didn't feel right just walking up behind someone on a roof and they don't hear you or anything, the running stealth kill was cool though.
Overall I thought the game was very good and had a great time playing all the way to the end.
Here's a link to an article on penny arcade about low review scores for AC, interesting read and good commentary on review scores in general.
Penny Arcade