While the change of scenery is very much welcome, AC3 suffers from what dragged the previous games in the series down.
GAMEPLAY - Not much has changed with the gameplay. Yes, there are now muskets and other firearms here. Most of which feel a lot more accurate than they ought to be. There are a slew of side missions, but as for the story missions, a lot tend to be repetitive and tedious. One in particular had me chasing someone, and if you didn't catch up to him, he would just keep circling the same route until you did catch him. It was a pretty difficult mission, and it felt very tedious and not fun as a result. I do like the little implementations here and there though. Stuff like hunting, piloting ships, and economical activities really help to bring variety to this experience. There wasn't much here that was overly-gimmicky or anything like that, so I was pretty satisfied with what was here. The repetitiveness was the only thing that really dragged the gameplay down. I was also disappointed by the lack of structures to climb and run around on. You are able to run on top of the trees, but this is easier said than done (Note: I did not try the multiplayer). - 5/10
STORY - In the present day, the end of the world is quickly approaching, and you once again play as Desmond Miles, who is trying to solve the latest puzzle in order to save the world. There are a few sequences with him, but nothing all that memorable. Even the ending seemed to fall a little flat to me. As for what takes place in the animus, you start off playing as a mysterious British figure. After a couple of chapters though, you assume the role of a young Native American who receives a vision that leads him to becoming an assassin. I won't give too much away aside from that, but the story feels vaguely similar to Pocahontas in a lot of ways. This was the only aspect of the game that really kept me going once I started to get bored with the repetitive missions, and I don't really feel like it paid off well in the end despite the great build-up. Also, Connor, the new protagonist, isn't nearly as good a character as Ezio was. This game's villains are actually the most entertaining characters in the story. I identified with them a lot more than Connor's character. - 6.5/10
GRAPHICS - This area is always good in the AC series, and it is no different here. In fact it may be better due to the change of scenery from Renaissance Europe to Colonial America. That alone sets this game apart a great deal from its predecessors. - 9/10
SOUND - The voice-acting is good here, though a lot of random NPC conversation doesn't really measure up to the rest of the voice-acting. The music is good though. - 7/10
LENGTH/REPLAY VALUE - This game is about as long as most AC games...maybe a little bit shorter. Not much replay value since the only reason to do so would be to experience the story again, but that's what replaying missions for full synchronization is for. Personally I don't see a lot of value here, but for completionists there is a lot to do. - 6/10
BOTTOM LINE - I think the biggest problem with this series is that the games come out too quickly. For the past 4 years, there has been an AC game out every fall. This would be fine if the transition from AC:Revelations to AC3 was a much bigger jump, but it wasn't. Other than a change of scenery, this is still the same game. And the unfortunate thing is that a lot of the missions have become very tedious and repetitive as a result. Is this game good? Mostly. Is it great? No. This is just another AC game and another year of them putting one out. Ubisoft needs to take a year off and really build up to the next game, if there is going to be another one. This game was better than Revelations, but I think that's only because of the change of scenery and a different main character. I'm not saying this series is beyond saving, but Ubisoft needs to take a year off and really build up to something much better before continuing this series. AC3 was a good effort, but if it gets its own "Brotherhood game," I won't be interested in playing it. - 6.5/10