Fun, but some changes take away from the experience.
One of the said areas where I thought it was going to be more enjoyable was the characters. Don't get me wrong- I do like Ezio. I just needed to start fresh with a new character and Connor was a breath of fresh air. Except he was more a breath of air that's been hanging around in the attic for a bit. He was boring. In all the trailers and previews and teasers, I thought Connor was going to be my favourite character out of all three, and I was genuinely upset that I found myself growing to dislike him the more I watched his cutscenes and heard his conversations. Hell, even HE sounds bored half the time. Either that or angry. Guy doesn't have a cheery bone in his body.
On the other hand, Haytham was a delight. I could have played as Haytham for the entire game.
I think my single biggest problem with AC3 was that I was confused. Despite how the game seemed limited and tutorial-like for a good, long while, half the time I didn't know what was going on. How do I find the Boston Brawlers again? Which items did I need for the delivery? What am I supposed to do with the convoy? The icon for the brawlers and the hunters are now displayed with the most recent patch, but a thorough introduction to the convoys might have been in order and the delivery list could have been a little more apparent.
It's possible that I may have tried to continue a little too fast and missed a few things, but I shouldn't have been as confused as I was trying to sort things out.
Lastly, why fix what ain't broke? The map is extremely counter-intuitive, especially after playing the last few installments in the series. However, it can be excused once you get used to it for the handy sidebar. I'm also not a fan of running over every last pixel to complete the map. It was an interesting idea, and I think it worked better for the frontier, but the cities should have been completed automatically in some way.
I should mention that I did actualy enjoy Assassin's Creed 3. The animals were a great addition, I loved the seasons, the naval battles were fantastic, and Domination is my new favourite multiplayer mode. Combat did actually feel like more than "just countering" and using the tomahawk was badass. It just seems to me that as much as they improved, they took away just as much with the mistakes.
Overall: 7.
Good game and I'd recommend it (especially now with the patches), but don't set your expectations too high.