While a great game, Assassin's Creed falls just a bit short
The positives of Assassin's Creed are many. Its a unique setting that hasn't been done (if not, done a lot) before. A fun twist on stealth gameplay. Gorgeous visuals. Interesting story. And true freedom. There is nothing like being far outside a city and seeing the skyline and all the high buildings knowing that if you wanted to, you could climb up those big buildings.
While playing the game, it's just fun to stalk your next victim until the time is just right at which point you pull your blade and go in for the kill. It's also fun (though at times frustrating) running from the guards after the kill because well quite frankly, fighting isn't the game's strong point. But all the running sequences are disturbed by one of the games positives oddly enough, the crowd.
All the cities in Assassin's Creed are alive. The streets a literally packed with people who will either help you, screw you up, or just stand in your way while you're trying to run. The graphical quality of everything with the sheer amounts of AI NPCs in the street is something to be marveled at.
That being said, the bad. Most of this has been said before, but it's worth mentioning. The two major gripes I have with the game are, 1. It's repetitive, as in the side missions are pretty much all the same. And 2. Enemy AI is dumb. Thats good in situations where you need to get away, but when you can kill someone and then go in your "Scholar" stance and just walk away with a guard looking at the corpse, thats just pretty bad.
Nevertheless, with some improvements, Assassin's Creed will only become better and reach the level in which the hype set.