My views on this boil down to:
- Most games are repetitive, reviewers just needed something to harp on about, also they probably ignored the tutorials and missed out on the next bit
- AC1's combat was great, you could choose how hard you wanted the challenge. You could counter with a sword almost never getting hit, or you could attempt to counter with the hidden blade in the knowledge that failure would mean you wouldn't block. On top of that you could go full on assault and tap the attack button just as the blades met and then you would get an instant kill with good timing. Doing this left you vulnerable to attacks from behind but you could counter these if you actively watched all your opponents. I myself am very skilled at this, wiping out large groups of enemies in about 30 seconds with a mixture of skill and timing and watching the enemy movements closely.
- AC2 removed the 'hit-button-as-swords-meet' aspect which was a little annoying because it was what gave depth to it. Instead the enemies had health or stamina and yeah, it got a little repetitive, but luckily I could still fallback on hidden blade counters. Unfortunately you could now block with them, so the difficulty went back to being easy across the board.
- ACB's combat is pretty good, and there is a lot more opportunites for creatively eliminating your opponents. I still think the timed hits should have been brought back though.