I have played a lot of games in the past 20 years and this is one of the few I've picked up and played through the entire thing just waiting for what was coming. The anticipation of what's going to happen keeps you playing. I kept waiting for it to flash forward to modern times and for the assassin's skill to be unleashed there. I won't ruin the game for you but I was a bit disappointed at the ending.

This is one of the few modern games I've played to the end, with most being shelved after a few weeks. This one kept coming out of the rack of games until I was finished. So, I'd say it's well worth the $[...] bucks compared to what most games are going for, and their "value."

If you buy one game for your system when you get it this one shows off what the PS3 can do quite well. You don't HAVE to play this one before the second one, but it's a good primer -- plus a lot cheaper in case you decide AC is not for you.

GAMEPLAY
There was a lot of potential in this game and it's really fun, but I can't give it 5 stars: It's too repetitive. Basically you climb buildings, go do mini-quests that repeat getting a bit tougher each time and then kill "Bosses" and run for your life (or do what I did:).

I'm not a hardcore gamer. So, after the first two levels, I realized a stealthy Assassin I was not. It simply required too much skill for me to lose the soldiers chasing you and hide and the stealthy way in was too tough for me, so I resorted to simply killing all the guards -- I got great practice saving citizens from street thugs. And once I learned to counter blows I was pretty much unstoppable. Maybe hardcore gamers would consider the fights too easy, but they're challenging enough that I lost a few even after I got used to the controls. But that's what was so fun about it - you could lose but it was less frustrating when you did.

I know they probably didn't intend me to walk into a building of 20 guards and have only me come out, but whatever ("I'll do what I want"). Even though they penalize you for killing innocents, I basically killed anyone who got in my way -- innocent or not. There's these crazy or drunk guys that push you when you'd be trying to get close to a target in some areas. A hidden blade works wonders on them so long as you don't worry about guards noticing, and making it too hard to kill your target.

OVERALL
The beautiful art and ability to do whatever you want kept me playing. I do have a problem with the fact that you can't kill some targets once they make it further away from where you're supposed to kill them. One or two guys made it out of the zone they set up, and I had to restart that part o the mission. I'm a huge fan of free running games so long as I like the topic/setting. And being an Assassin in the holy land during the Crusades is a great setting. Also, the game saves at every significant point so you don't have to redo a bunch of things you've already done if you die halfway through, which is a great mechanic.

Why is it that some games hit the spot, yet disappear in favor of the first person, shooter games, that have you run around and participate in reduntant time killers. This game started out with so much fun and anticipation, like GTA3. Then what a disappointment. The same things, over and over. It just doesn't matter how bad you are or how good you are, it is just plain annoying and makes me want to try a new game.

At least with a similar game like GTA3, you could run around the city and wreak havoc-and have stats building to show how much of a bada$$ you can become-and that's even before you've done any missions. In this game, there isn't anything out there, just one little repetitive mission after another to get to an assassination. Oh, sorry, not an assassination, but a brawl with a bunch of guards and whomever you felt like taking on.

There is nothing out there except the same old thing. Steal a horse, jump off, beat up a bunch of guards, run around a city, climb a tower, jump off the tower and get the bad-guy boss.

Hmmm... sounds familiar...

Time for change. At least I didn't spend full price. Worth a try to play and try out and see the great graphics and watch the flicks, but after playing a bit, you'll see, it just gets to be the same old thing all over again.

this game is fun and cool.
advantages:
the graphics are really great.
cool way of fighting.
you can climb any building.
great story.

disadvantage:
short story.
too many replays.

Other reviewers have noted that the game feels really repetitive and that they lost interest in completing the game. I agree (I have competed the game so that I could write this review), but want to emphasize that the negative "feel." I feel very disconnected from the character. This results from

(1) his movement ... sometimes he feels heavy and slow, it's frustrating to move him. The free run parts are exciting but they are not that interactive;

(2) the miniquests ... these are redundant, and resort to "timed challenges" to add difficulty which IMO is a bit of a cop-out. The deeper problem is that the mini-quests aren't longer run character choices they're just random events that don't really involve the mission you're doing except you for a few random lines of dialog.

(3) the action/stealth ratio ... I realize bought a game called "assassins creed" I thought the point of the game would be stealth kills and daring escapes. As it turns out, a lot of the kills are not stealth, but after big battles. There's no "economy of violence" principle forcing you to limit your killing (like thief and Splinter Cell had), there's no penalty to you at all for killing, in fact the game guides you to enter into big high-publicity fights. This part of the game just doesn't tick the way it should.

(4) no real risks ... my character has a lot of health. I can battle thirty people and be OK, or jump from a big ledge and lose most of my health only to recover it in a few seconds.

(5) Annoyances ... there is a lot of recurring sound bits. These take me out of the game.

The assassination missions are OK. They do get progressively harder, but more through battle elements than through stealth elements.

The game is a pretty decent fight and explore game, and the cities are pretty and the free-running is fun, but the game design has some major flaws.

I recommend you rent this before you buy it to see how you like it. If you're really interested, I think you'll see a lot of used copies available soon (not all of them played to completion).

Well i like the game, i love the graphics and the gameplay style, but that is when the game is not freezing...and yes it have a lot of framerate issues and bugs. Sorry i was exited for this game and it let me down...