Story/Characters/Setting.
I liked the main two characters, their back story, and just them in general. Elise was one of my favorite characters of the series, even tho she was a Templar (in name, anyway). And Arno definitely seemed a bit of a return to an Ezio-like character. So they were great. And I loved the depection of their relationship. You really coudl see/feel the emotion from these characters - especially as you got closer to the end game. So really enjoyed them (if not the sad but predictable end). Also liked the depiction of the Marquis de Sade. What was disappointing from a character standpoint was the Assassin’s council. For the second straight game (#1 being Rogue), it just seemed like the Assassins were a bunch of idiots. What? You’re investigating someone who clearly is a dangerous threat not just to us but all of France? When we didn’t tell you to? YOU’RE EXPELLED!!! Just dumb. Plus - OK, they expel him, but they apparently let him keep all his weaponry? Just weird. And I have no idea what he’s supposed to be at the end of the game or during the DLC - is he an Assassin’? Is he rogue and needs to watch his back from other Assassin’s? Just - ugh.
Setting - I thought this was probably the best looking game to date from a setting standpoint. They did a great job with Paris, and the crowds, and having the overall ‘right’ feel of a city in turmoil. Can’t say enough good things about that. It’s a shame, then, that they didn’t do a better job integrating the story into the revolution. With AC3, you could come away feeling that if not for Connor, the Americans would have lost their revolution. Here, you’re just doing things that happen to be taking place at the same time as the revolution. You’re not really a part of it. And that’s a missed opportunity.
Story - already said that it seemed like a wasted opportunity to really have this game be more involved with the revolution. But the other part of the story is the present day stuff. I know I’m in the minority on this, but I always liked the present-day part of the game. To reduce it all to just one introduction movie and some voice overs just bothers me. I have no idea who this woman is sending me to do this work to start with, even with Sean (sorry, Deacon) in the background. And then on top of all that, it turns out that you’ve spent all this time living the memories of Arno, only to learn that if you (the present day character) had done absolutely nothing, everything would have turned out the same because the thing you were worried about ended up to not be a concern.
Integration of present/past - I realized that there’s been a problem with this since AC2, but it seems to be getting more and more absurd with each passing game. Take AC2 - Clay breaks into the Animus and leaves these code fragments all over the place, and you (as Desmond) track them down. Now, those glyph puzzles were a lot of fun, but here’s the thing - they didn’t exist when Ezio was actually alive. So why would he be investigating them to begin with? There was nothing there. How can you relieve the memories of Ezio looking at these glyphs when they weren’t actually there in his timeframe (or even at all, since they only exist w/in the Animus)? By Unity, it’s just gotten stupid - those server sweeps that send you to different timeframes in Paris. Arno didn’t actually time travel. So how can you be reliving the memories of him doing so? It just makes no damn sense. Same thing with the helix glitches, or whatever those missions were. Even giving the game a bit of leeway, this just makes no actual sense. If memory serves, at least when they did something like this with Syndicate, you ended up reliving another persons memory, and not taking one of the twins to a different time.
Finally - how hard can it be to put a ‘new game’ button or menu entry in the pause menu, or right up front? The hoops you have to jump through to start a new game is just beyond stupid.