I'm as much of a Ubisoft naysayer as you can get. The publisher has done little to impress me in the past decade as their output continues its decline into design-by-committee mediocrity. This game though? I never understood the hate. It's as close as you can get to an open-world Splinter Cell. It feels WONDERFUL to play. The controls are tight, the mechanics are well executed. Shooting feels great, stealth movement is satisfying. Hacking the environment to distract enemies or evade your pursuers while driving is an awesome feature that gets better the more skills you unlock.

And yet people really rag on this game. I think that seed was planted with the downgrade fiasco that occurred in the months prior to the game's release, and a lot of folks had already made their mind up at that point. And yes, the noticeable dip in visual fidelity from that reveal trailer was rather unfortunate. But this game yo. This game fucks. It plays so damn good.