For me, the AC series have always been a pretty mediocre series at best (3 stars at the best), but I do tend to come back to it each year when its on sale during black friday. Comfort food you'd call it. This year is a bit different. This is the first AC game that I enjoyed doing most of the side stuff. It ended up scratching an itch that is purely reserved for mmos. So while the gameplay is mediocre and janky asscreed, there is enough things to do with enough rewards to compel me to finish the game at 85% completion which is way more than any other ac game. Really the only cons of this is the crazy amounts of tailing and 'avoid all combat optional objective' and the lack of many melee weapon types. Otherwise the sea combat is fun, the visuals are gorgeous on pc and next gen.... its well worth digging into. Heck it even broke the trend of an AC game with a complete bonkers ending! Imagine that.
It's probably the must have launch title on next consoles if you don't want a shooter or sports game. Enough stuff to keep ya busy for a long ass while.