Not too assasiny, and way too bugged
Now, at over 80% completion, I have to say that sadly, I wasn't mistaken. ACIII is an overly-complicated, and yet disappointingly easy bag of glitches and bugs ranging from slightly annoying to making the game utterly unplayable. It seems like one more time, the creators have taken a bigger bit that they could chew, becoming victims of their own ambitions.
The game is in deed huge and diversified. You have Boston, New York and two wild, woody areas to explore. You have your marvelous graphics that includes gorgeous snow, sharp textures (except for plant closeups, which are painty-looking and disgraceful) and interestingly created cities, with much attention paid for details (example: go to the burned down section of New York, check out the insides of destroyed buildings, with remains of wallpapers on the walls and such!). Graphically, the cities stand out, but that was something to expect of people behind such marvels as XV century Italy or beautiful Constantinople. The woods, however, present a slightly different story. The before-mentioned ground plants look pixel-ly on closeups, and the trees could use some anti-aliasing.
But that's not that biggest downfall of the game. While visually pleasurable, the game's content lacks everything. To start off, the game doesn't fell too "assasiny" - yes, you still kill people, yes, you hunt down the animals, but with the various sea and on-land battles (absolutely amazing to play, but not in this game!) the game feels more like the 2013 version of Risk or Pirates of the Caribbean than Assassin's Creed installment. I lack the pirate-adoration gene.
Another thing is the linearity of the story. You have your main line of missions and a couple of side missions, and how you play them, is up to you. And that's ridiculous. You can play the main missions and finish them first and go on to the side missions, which is how I happen to play the game, and which, apparently, is not how you do it, because that way, the whole story makes little to no sense. The game lacks a proper mission-completion system.
And there's Connor. Connor, Connor, Connor. You had large shoes to fill in, rest in peace, Ezio. It feels only natural that Ubisoft would create a hero so different from Ezio, after all, it is a new part. But Connor is just not likable. I understand that he's enraged, he has every right to, but most of the time, he behaves like a spoilt, angry brat, and it's hard to take liking to him. The other times, he's just plain annoying. And Ubisoft is well aware of that - recently it's been said that Connor will not return in 2014 for the AC next adventure.
Finally, there are the bugs. I can honestly say I have never played a game in my life with so many of them - it seems everywhere you go, there are some. Visual glitches, pattern and textures glitches. You have to kill someone but you can't because that somebody is stuck inside of the building you have no access to, making it impossible to finish the mission. It's nice to change outfits, but why do it, since Connor changes back to his clothes in every cut scene? Which are, by the way, sloppy and poorly made. Sometimes, the guards will attack you for no reason whatsoever, despite the fact that you're "incognito".
One of the biggest changes -and disappointments- is the lack of the ability of improvement of Connor. The only way you can "enhance" him, is getting him a better weapon, but that's about it. There are no armors that would make him more resilient to attacks (except for one treasure, but no spoilers). That's one of the most terrible mistakes of the game. As the story progresses, as you finish more and more missions, there is absolutely no sense of accomplishment. In the previous parts, you could -with time- equip your protagonist with new parts of armor, making him stronger and more invincible. This time, there is no such option, which feels that with time, there is no growth, and you're stuck with the same hero you started with, and he grows no stronger, which dosn't feel very real. Also, you'd think that conquering forts would give you something respect-wise, but it doesn't - the guards still look at you with high suspicion. If you may recall from the previous games, with time, you'd earn special outfits, that would grant you peace with guards, which made sense. That was also taken back, which, overall feels like a devolution.
And there are the little things. Like at some point, you can take part in a mini-game of finding the Pivots - point of no set location. Finding them earns you Animus codes, which are nice - you can set the weather, remove the re-loading of guns (which take time, and by the way, why? Guns from the previous parts -set over 200 years before- needed no such thing). But, not even that makes your life easier nor it gives you a true sense of accomplishment in any permanent way, because when the cheats (well deserved, I might add) are set to on, you can't save the game's progression. So what's the point? With that, and many other things, it feels like the makers wanted to batter the player. And shouldn't the game be made to make you relax and enjoy?
Maybe Ubisoft forgot that part.