Worth a rental if you have not played it yet, has great moments but for every good, something horrible counters the joy.
It is an unholy balance that constantly shifts game from bliss to annoyance. The sound has some lovely moments, good voice acting combined with the different languages of the guards countered by hearing the exact same thing when rescuing citizens for the eleventh time. They manage to look the looks for said citizens unique (if a bit bizarre that a wrinkled old crone is the target) so why only two or three phrases?
The way you do the mission is the same, ride to city, climb the towers, rescue the citizens, collect information by one of four methods, run away/fight guards, you do this in nine separate area's. This does leave a feeling of repetitiveness yet there are moments that add gloss to the proceedings, not just the view points and the resulting leaps. The informer missions are a nice change, while always collecting flag or killing someone, they are a little more difficult then the other ways of collecting information though that this is a welcome says how repetitive the whole thing can be.
The fighting is done well enough for the times when running through the streets and over the rooftops, which is good fun in a major chase, is not an option. Yet you can't take the offensive from very early on, I ended up playing entirely on the counter attack system which is very effective as swarms of guards fought me. It takes skill but sitting there, waiting for an opponent to strike so you can counter might be off putting for many. One problem I had was the lock on system is sometimes slow to react leaving half my health bar taken before I could get in a block and sometimes it makes stupid choices. I want to attack and kill the one guard member who I knocked to the floor, not one of the plenty standing and ready to block!
The assassination missions at the end of all that do differ slightly but generally it is sneaking to the place, watching a cutscene then trying to sneak kill the target. In truth, I often ended up chasing or in a long fight to get my man but it is possible to stealth kill most of them. Each target makes an impact with their personality, from the moment you meet them to the speech as they die, it is a very short time to make any sort of impact yet each one leaves an impression. Only Altair struggles to either be likable or memorable, a flaw considering he is your main character while Desmond, the other playable, struggles as well though has more wit. The non playables though are very well done, from your superior in the brotherhood, to the scientists Lucy and her intelligent but short tempered boss Warren, all the way down to your informants. Some, like the scientists and boss Al Mualim get a lot of time to make their mark and they do but the characterization also reaches down to the other missions. What drove me to do all the information collecting was listening to those people, their own problems in the world laid bear to your listening ears, it livened up the repetitive nature of the tasks.
The storyline itself is not too strong, most things are laid out from the start and rest affecting the game itself rather then future sequels is revealed midway through. There is little surprise or twist but it is rescued by the characters within it being so interesting (with the exception of the guys you play as) and while the teasing clues at the end are a nice touch if you can figure them out, that is more a set up for the next game then strengthening the storyline for this one.
It is a repetitive but well made game that is dragged from the 5's by good acting and moments of joy that, if patient, does make it all worth while. There is a lot of good that they can work from for the sequel, iron out the flaws, add more variety, hopefully keep Lucy, Wayne and Desmond and add subtitles, we could be looking at a very strong trilogy.