Some Random Tosser said:
By 'a lot a changed', you probably mean 'a lot more stuff has been tacked on to gameplay'. To me, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood will always feel like an expansion pack to Assassin's Creed II that I had to pay full price for. At least the first and second games were vastly different with different contexts, but Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood just feels rushed out and the assassin recruits, to me, feel underutilised. It's not like they make much of a difference in the story.
If your Assassins felt underutilised it's because you weren't using them enough. They're instrumental in several story missions if you're going for 100% synch, they're great fun to call in on guards, pickpockets and Borgia couriers just for the hell of it if you don't feel like dealing with them yourself, and sending them out of missions nets you money early on when you need it - then later on when they're ranked up you can send them on the really tough assignments where they can net you key trade items you need for shop quests.
It's really the other guilds that were under-utilised. Yes, Courtesans came in handy once or twice, but I didn't need to use theives or mercenaries at all once I had a few Assassin recruits.
If you think AC:B felt like an expansion, I have no idea what more you could possibly have expected. A new
vast city, an excellent continuation of the story, some new gameplay elements, though truthfully they may as well have taken out the pistol when they took the crossbow - I only recall using the pistol
once when I ran out of Crossbow bolts, and that was because I wasn't looting corpses as diligently as I should've been. The only other times I heard the pistol go off were during executions, which was unnecessary.
It felt like a fully fledged game to me, with a surprisingly excellent multiplayer. It's great that I am rewarded for playing stealthily, so I can come 2nd or 3rd (I'm yet to net a first place, but I've only played about 10 games) with half the kills of the morons who run around getting 100-point kills because they keep blowing their cover. It's exhilarating to escape, and hilarious to lure your pursuer to a civilian.
One fond memory for me was when I play playing as a smuggler and found two other smugglers talking in a blend spot - so I joined them. My pursuer managed to track me to the blend spot then stood there for about a minute watching the three of us - me and two NPCs - trying to guess which one was his correct target. Unfortunately I couldn't stun him because he hadn't exposed himself in terms of gameplay mechanics - he was 100% stealthed - but I
knew he was my pursuer, and laughed like a maniac when he turned and pounced on one of the NPCs because they turned and left the conversation before I did.
Anyway, I digress. An expansion to AC2? Maybe. Worth full retail price? Absolutely.
