This is more of a mixed bag than the other games in the series. It has some great parts, but also has some not so great
There is a new setting setting in this game never shown before with the forest and animals being a part of the game. Hunting and skinning animals are also part of the game. This game does not have any upgrades when it comes to the home where the character is settled.
The whole setting takes the whole american revolution and takes the fictional characters such as Haytham and Connor and puts them right in the middle of them. They also have real characters such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and other known persons from that era.
The gameplay and combat itself has been changed a little bit. The counter system has been worked on and needs more timing than before. This can make confronting larger more challenging
The bad:
Something that sticks out right away after the beginning is that guards recognize you immediately if you just have one on your notorious level. You get recognized faster when you are on rooftops, it does not give you any incentive to actually climb the houses in the cities of New York and Boston. The posters for you to get noticed less is even removed from your map entirely making it harder for you to lose your character getting noticed by guards.
The modern part of the story also has a bigger role in this, which isn't bad. But the sour note the game. With the game ending on the biggest cliffhanger in the entire Assassin's Creed series. The other ones in the series, might not have a a real ending except for Revelations ending Ezio's and Altairs story. They just leave one big question mark and break the entire series with such a an ending. It will be a big dissapointment for those that have played all of the games and might even anger some.
The new homestead isn't upgradable and doesn't really give you any incentive to go deeper. It gives you more story to some characters if you are invested in the game and want a little more story to it. Some are interesting, but they consist mostly of fetch quests and mostly consist you doing the same with helping them with something they can't do themselves. They can be really tedious to do if you can't get invested in the characters. The upgrades and shipments you do with the homestead are pretty much useless and doesn't really give any depth to the game. Looking at the result of this design decision it is not clear what was suppose to be the meaning of this whole system.
The counter system doesn't always respond the way you want it to, and get often hit even though the timing is good.
The good:
The graphics of this game are a really big upgrade to the previous games in the series, and it is really stunning to watch, wether it is the cutscenes or exploring the world. It is truly beautiful to look at.
The characters of this story are strong, some might be used to the idea of a character of the likes of Ezio and Altair. They have to keep in mind that this is a whole new character, with his own story and problems. The voice acting is great, and give depth to the characters and the story itself. Even though that i have mentioned that the "modern" ending for the game ends on a big cliffhanger, doesn't mean that this game doesn't have a good story. Connors and Haytham's story through this game is really good and worth experiencing.
The audio and sound effects are well made and the mood it sets when traveling in the forest is really important, could have felt really empty if this wasn't case.
The gameplay has also improved. The climbing has never been this fun, even though the game does not give you any real incentive to actually climb and explore the rooftops because of troops, doesn't mean the mechanics for it are bad. Far from it, it's never been this much fun to actually climb which is really sad when the notorious system undermines this mostly.
The combat is more realistic and requires the user to time the counters more, it can be really fun when have a few opponents and really dominate them, but when you have several enemies against you it can work against you.
Overall this is a mixed bag, there is enough though to actually play this game, even though some might be dissapointed with this being the biggest and best in the series, it is far from being a bad game. It is worth a shot if you are an Assassin's Creed fan, but also keep in mind, this might not be the overall best game. I did not encounter many bugs in my Xbox version, but that doesn't mean this is free of bugs and glitches.