Beautiful life like world, and somewhat intriguing side story, makes it a worthwhile look.
This game is very repetitive, where you'll constantly to go point A (Marsyl) to be brief, and then to point B (Jerusalem, Damascus, Arca) to carry out your assassin missions. To find out information out about your assassin, all you need to do is climb every view point the in the city to locate potential clues. Which will be side missions that will require you to eavesdrop, pickpocket, and interrogate. All very simple to carryout. It's best for you to climb every view point in the game to make it easier for you locate your side missions, and to more importantly increase your blood once the assassin mission is complete.
The fun side mission you'll get is the one from the informant's, which usually require to complete a few stealth kills from the roof which is probably the most enjoyable to do. Since it puts your gaming skill challenge to the test. The other optional side mission includes saving citizens which is a pain, because your constantly force to fend off numerous of enemies to get nothing, except entry to restricted areas, all though you can still easily climb into those restricted areas. The story on this game is somewhat interesting with a little conspiracy twist, that makes it worthwhile to keep playing. The combat is somewhat less desirable because it took me until the seventh assassin mission to fully be able to understand how to wield the blade like an expert. Unlike Ninja Gaiden, the sword fighting is just too dull with not many moves to fend off your enemies except using the counter moves, which gives you a great cinematic kill.
How fast you learn how master the sword counter moves will determine how enjoyable this game becomes. You will have to learn how to master it to complete the game though, because you will be fighting waves of enemies, unlike the first 9 missions where you can just stealth through. Once you do become a master with the sword, you can easily dispatch enemies and not find yourself running away. You'll go looking for trouble because it that enjoyable to watch gore gushing everywhere. The other fun killing to do is the stealth kill with the hidden blade, which is done on unsuspecting guards. I usually do it on them roof top soldiers and never gets old seeing a cinematic stealth blade to the throat of them roof top guards telling you leave that area.
In summary the Cities are gorgeously detailed and life like, making fun to just walk around and marvel it. The combat I feel takes time to learn and frustrating to point you do not want to play this game again. Once you master the combat area, this game becomes very fun. Again the story was somewhat interesting and that's why I decided to take another look at this game finally after 4 years later. I'm definitely looking forward to playing all of the assassin creed series now, now that I'm a bad@ss that is an expert with the sword.