I’m not minding the missions as much as I thought I would when I started, even if few of them are really imaginative. It helps that the side missions are not as (explicitly) regimented in type as they were with Syndicate, so I’m not going into them thinking “Oh god, not another investigation mission” or whatever. There’s still only a relatively small handful of verbs involved, but they mix things up a bit more freely. It also really helps that you can drop what you’re doing mid-mission and come back to it later. That’s a real game-changer.
Overall, the game feels like a decent stepping stone to something better. They had to do something to shake things up, and they have, but it’s clearly not the finished article. As mentioned above the upgrade and loot box system makes random loot pointless. Combat is not quite there, and too loose to be satisfying when you win. I miss the economic stuff from the previous games.
Snake boat fight wasn’t great, but I didn’t find it too bad either.