this game is really carried by its story, and what a story this is! Certainly the best of the ezio trilogy, the conclusion of ezio's and altair's story is done right.
Constantinople is a pretty good setting but i just prefer Rome imo. the only thing that i didn’t like was the combat, for a start the bombs are pretty useless, i mean i can see they put a lot of thought behind it with a lot of crafting materials to craft a variety of bombs but apart from the mission where they introduced to bombs i didn’t used them.
also same problem i've had with brothehood, but ezio most of the time wouldn’t engage combat before getting hit himself which is pretty annoying if you try not to lose any health.
the fact that not every enemy can be counter killed might be more challenging but imo if you are looking for a challenging game the early AC games are not it.
i just prefer the AC2 system where you can pretty much one-hit every enemy if you press the button at the right time. like in the late game there are to many janissaries that require 3 or 4 counter to be killed, imo it breaks the flow, these games are all about feeling like an unstoppable machine and fighting the janissaries and spearmen are not it.