I liked AC as a playground. The game just needed to provide more excuses for wandering around and playing in the sandbox. I mean, there's just acres of gorgeous modeling and these awesome little neighborhoods in every city, places where I just loved to stop and look around and go, "this is so cool"... but there's so very few reasons to be there.
And yeah, the mini-missions required to unlock each target got old super-fast. They could have couched 'em in different ways to at least break up the monotony, but no...
For sheer sandbox running about though, it's sweet. I just wish I wasn't required to make up my own missions (like soldier-baiting scenarios) in order to get more mileage out of it. And I'm sorry, but flag-chasing blows.
OH, and once you figure out the timing for counters with the assassin's blade, the combat is totally broken. I mean, you become a complete bad-ass (basically every fight is you getting surrounded, and every time someone tries to hit you it's dodge, counter, and instant-kill them with your little spring-loaded stiletto in some entertaining fashion, until you run out of bad guys or they all run away shrieking in fear. Oh, and anytime one of them runs or gets distracted, they're open for a jumping kill, which makes you look even more awesome), but it gets tiresome. I actually got bored with being a bad-ass. Now that ain't right.
You can even use it in boss fights... which admittedly, made for a super cathartic ending when the final boss ran through that whole LONG-ASS speech, finally went to fight me with his fancy sword work, and I stirred his brain with my needle through his chin.
But still, broken.