I've had the game for ages, and only just finally started playing it. And I have to say, after a few days, I'm tired and annoyed with it. Am I the only one that has this reaction to it?

I know the game was received very positively, and has great reviews, and for the first dozen hours or so I also enjoyed it. The free-running is great, assassinating is fun, and revenge makes for a great story. Also since I only played part of Assassins Creed 1 and never really made it to the gist of the storyline, all the artifacts of eden stuff was totally new to me, and I liked the conspiracy theory aspects of it.

The problem is that none of these things actually appear much in the storyline. As of 17 "Truth" videos, I just have a bunch of pointless and disjointed clips that seem to mock me for putting forth the effort of finding them, Desmond has barely appeared in the game, I still know next to nothing about what is happening in the present, and Ezio is consistently an idiot, his most recent mistake passing up a chance to kill the Templar leader in Venice along with about four other targets, probably because killing them right then and there would have meant the game ending much sooner.

But things like that would be forgivable if the game world felt alive, which to me it simply doesn't. I'm loaded with money so there is no sense in looking for treasure aside from a desire to be a completionist, sidequests are annoying and repetitive in that you constantly have to run from one side of the map to the other in order to trigger the next quest. Not to mention that during the assassination quests, you never really feel like the people you are assassinating are doing anything wrong. You only ever see them walking about or running from you. Also, the fact that you can only trigger one quest at a time, can only speak to quest givers and vendors, and can only speak to quest givers when they have a quest to give all serves to make it feel like Ezio is alone in the world, with other characters appearing only when necessary to drive things along.

This idea is strengthened by the fact that in the Merchant of Venice sequence, I broke into the house of the merchant I needed to kill without helping the thieves guild. And it was easy, simply a matter of taking out the sentries and scaling the wall, then dropping inside. And inside was absolutely nothing, just a square with a few more guards, and not a single thing to reward me. It was only after following the main quest and helping the thieves, and then receiving their useless help in return, that i was able to enter the building again and find my target. Things like that all make the game seem very lifeless. I can roam, but there is little point in doing so, so it's simply a matter of doing mission after mission after mission. But with the storyline so lackluster, and the missions so pointless (if I can enter the building alone then why am I wasting time, and, according to the game, entire years, of my life helping some thieves), the process quickly starts becoming boring and monotonous.

Anyone else feel this way? Anyone strongly disagree with me?