Rants 'N Raves: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Not everyone has the time to read or write a full review of every game that hits the market. Rants 'n Raves is your chance to read a quick breakdown of a game's strengths and weaknesses, as well as provide your own analysis. The concept is simple: put your pros and cons in a bullet point format, and make your critique of each bullet point as concise as you can. This time, we take a look at Ubisoft Montreal's Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood.

RAVES

• The art of the assassination is still awesome three games in
• Building an assassins guild is a blast, as is calling in your sidekicks to do your dirty work
• Revised combat system improves on the last two games
• Great designated platforming sections in the Romulus lairs and Leonardo missions
• All of the side-tasks related to rebuilding Rome are a great diversion from the main story
• 100% sync option encourages replay and ups the challenge for missions
• Unique multiplayer mode feels different than anything that has come before it

RANTS

• Don’t show us the damned Borgia towers on our map if we can’t get to them
• The wrap-up with Rodrigo Borgia was disappointing
• Unlike the last game, the ending didn’t improve the fiction; it was just a convoluted mess
• Most of your assassination targets are just random dudes who aren’t built up as characters at all
• Truth puzzles are too slow and frustrating
• Ugly Romulus armor a bad payoff for completing those side-quests
• Poorly implemented tutorial for new combat system
• Raiden?! Get your MGS out of my AC
• Too little to do in modern Monteriggioni with Desmond
  

What's your take?