By all accounts, this is a sequel to Assassin's Creed II's worst tendencies, and unfortunately, it marked the course of subsequent AC entries for a while. Collecting is favored to visiting locations, dungeons and challenges are less varied, and the story takes a quick dive that it won't recover from. Ezio gets ascended from gifted Assassin to figure-that-inspires-Machiavello-to-write-the-Prince (which is such a crass way to pander players that I haven't recovered from it yet). It's a shame that this is the best looking game of the franchise thus far, because its appeal is thoroughly wasted here.