Then again you can say that about most games nowadays eh?...
The Good:
Hunter and Prey: As you may already know, in this game you're not playing as a traditional Assassin, but an assassin who becomes their arch-enemy, a Tempar. This opens up to a game that not only have a story told by a different point of view, bit it affects the overall gameplay as well. Remember how you hid in haystacks, bushes, above roofs, among people waiting to assassinate your target? Now that you're on other side of the war, same can happen to YOU. There are assassins every corner of open world and sometimes in the missions itself waiting to take a bite out of you. This makes missions and even free roaming more challenging than taking out an oblivious group of guards. It doesn't stop there. In Gang Hideout missions, the leader of those gangs are also assassins whom you must root out of their hiding places and attack them, this becomes even more challenging due to them also having heightened senses which means they can also spot you through where you're hiding. Don't think you're safe at sea either. If you gain enough notoriety, Assassins hunter ships will peruse you and attack you by boarding your own ship. This is the best (and only good) thing about this game.
Everything awesome about Black Flag: For me Black Flag is my favorite AC Title in terms of gameplay and this game tries it's best to have everything great about it. A big open open world with different locations, Sailing ships in open oceans, fighting legendary ships, the upgrade systems etc. You could say it's a carbon copy of Black Flag but let's not go there yet.
Assassin Interceptions: While for the most part side quests remain same as its predecessors one thing that did change is this one. In other games Assassin Interceptions are about tracking down targets and assassinating them. But here, as you're templar, you must defend the target and take down the ones who are trying to assassinate. I felt this was a clever move and makes you truly feel like you're in the opposite side of war.
Soundtrack: Assassin's Creed games always have a great soundtrack and this one is no different.
Optimized Performance and no major bugs: This not really something that should be pointed out since we essentially expect this in a game, but considering the 'amazing' track record of previous games and especially Rogue's broken counterpart Unity, this needs to be praised.
The Bad:
Toned down gameplay elements of previous games: The game tries its best to implement mechanics that made its predecessors unique and the result is pretty much a cheap and sometimes unnecessary version of it. Such as Hunting Missions; it worked on AC3 because Connor was a natural hunter which means he has all these hunting equipments (baits, snares) at his disposal which was fun to work with, and it each mission had a minor story and gives you a very certain animal to hunt. In this game most of the time you hunt for same animal in all of its missions (mostly deer and rabbits) and the only weapon you would be using is a gun. Which is no way fun nor challenging. Navel campaign also make a return from AC4 and while it worked in that game because it was a part of its companion app, here it's just tedious and boring without earning any worthwhile rewards. Then there is Renovation; In Brotherhood you were renovating famous buildings and doing so will uplift the economy of people around it. In AC3 it's a story itself filled with characters and more side missions. Here you just invest money on random places and gain an income and that's it. It doesn't feel rewarding nor significant as it was before.
Another Scavenger Hunt: After all those years and all those games we're yet again on another race for another random first civilization artifact that writers pulled out of their....creativity.
Disappointing Boss Battles: Even though now we're fighting against fully trained Assassins, their boss fights are no different from fighting regular bad guys from other AC titles in which you either chase them and backstab or do simple sword counter strike and end them in matter of seconds. It's such a disappointment that they didn't use any form of those new Assassin enemy tactics I mentioned at the beginning of this review.
50/50:
A great story concept wasted by weak execution: This game stands out from the rest of the series as this is the first time we play as an Assassin and then turn in to a Templar. So this would be a perfect opportunity for the perceptions of both fractions to collide, present both point of views in a whole new and deep level and show there truly is no good nor bad side in this never ending war. Also as this is the final chapter of North American Saga (A.K.A. Kennway trilogy) and fills the gap between AC4 and AC3, this is also the ideal instance to explore the notable characters of this series such as Haythem, Adewale and Achilles and create memorable character interactions and in turn a memorable and unique game. Unfortunately the game does a very poor job to grab its full potential. The main campaign is way too short to even develop its main protagonist left alone do anything I mention. And even in that limited time, they use it mainly for the scavenger hunt and other random missions they cook up on the way. EVEN in THAT short story they have too many gaps in middle of it that could have been explained in a better way. I'm not going to spoil anything but Assassins are also depicted as ignorant 'bad' guys as opposed to being the other side of war with a different vision and the interactions between them and protagonist (especially in their final death scenes) are downright disappointing. I'm not saying it's a bad story, it's decent but had had too less memorable moments and way too much room for improvement.
Just another AC Game at core: At the outer layer it has all those good and bad things I mentioned. But let's not sugarcoat it any further. At the inner layer it is pretty much AC4: Black Flag with a few changes and at the very core it inherits all typical Assassin's Creed Elements we know and (may) love. The simple stealth gameplay, childish combat system, idiotic AI, tedious search for loads off collectibles all over the place with very small value etc. Whether these are bad or bearable depends on whether you truly feel it's worth it to go through that all over again after so many annualized games.
Conclusion:
In the end Assassin's Creed: Rogue is a fairly decent game with an 'OK' story and 'OK' gameplay. Whether it is recommended for you depends on your current outlook on this game series. It hold outs well on its own and is a proper send off to both Kennway Saga and Last-Gen Consoles but as an addition to a 7 year old franchise with 8 main games and much more to come, it will only be remembered as 'the game that lets you play as the bad guy'.
RATE: 7.5/10