Everything the first should have been and more!
Story
It's actually quite interesting there's some twists and there is a lot of explanation of why certain things are being done, seeing how much Templers were integrated into modern day society (in the game of course) was quite cool.
Graphics/Audio
Improvement over the original, I noticed better lighting, some new animations, slightly better models and the cities themselves are extremely impressive as in the first. I did notice framerate dips that occurred in the game, while these weren't enough to make the game unplayable by any means they were noticeable at times. In terms of voices you get a mix between Italian and English speech which you can see the translation for if you turn on subtitles, as for weapon sounds, deaths and other sounds they are all great, no complaints here.
Gameplay
Ah and here's where AC2 has excelled the most over its predecessor, first off countering while still highly effective is not always the best thing to do all the time, dodging can prove to be equally if not more effective than countering at times. Also unarmed combat has been significantly improved, due to the ability to disarm opponents which makes for some very flash kills.
The array of weapons have been significantly increased as well, with axes, different types of daggers, different types of swords, spears, dual assassin blades, poison assassin blades and different types of maces, these all have different stats and should be chosen depending on your fighting style. There are also armour upgrades which can be bought from the shop (as well as the different weapons) or you can get a certain type of armour(which I won't spoil for anyone) by doing some of the many varied side missions in the game. You also have to manage money, which is pretty abundant as you get a lot from completing missions, robbing people or simply finding chests.
In terms of missions there have been quite a few changes to the old system, first of all investigation is NOT required to do an assassination, secondly there are a lot more types of side missions, from courier services, to beat em ups, to races and to exploring crypts, the game never feels repetitive (one of the major flaws with the first game) and the main quests are awesome and do an amazing job of pushing the story forward. There are also new ways to infiltrate, you can hire groups of individuals to distract guards, each with their own unique way of doing things, you can hire prostitutes to dance for them, mercs to fight them or thieves to steal from them and run. Along with new ways to infiltrate you are given new tools to escape, such as the smoke bomb which is extremely effective of getting out bad situations and you can also use a blend maneuver to basically "hide in plain sight". In terms of enemies there are different types, there are the normal guards who wear medium armour and run at normal speed, the fast guys who wear little armour but can catch you and they also look for you in the traditional hiding spots such as in the hay, and they can detect you in a blend maneuver and finally the brutes as I like to call them, heavily armoured guys that take quite a beat down to kill and they inflict massive damage.. they are slow and aren't too bright though.
Conclusion
I think I've covered everything as simply as I could, but one thing I can say about this game, it's an absolute blast and I am really loving it I am around 12 hours in and it's not over! I recommend it to anyone on the fence about the game or for anyone who likes games in general.
9.5/10