I feel like it's not as fun as the first one. The interest in the game was always in performing the assassinations, and in the original that was pretty much what you got - a planning phase, an execution phase and an aftermath. The investigation actually provided you with (usually) useful information to carry out the mission, so you could actually skip past it if you already knew what you were doing, but the reward for doing it was directly related to the core gameplay aspect.

Well, I have to admit I was disappointed that the climax of the game involved straight out fights rather than assassinations but still, they were fun when you had them.

Thus far in the second iteration, both assassinations were significantly railroaded, and I've been bogged down by hours of tutorials and fetch quests. And now that I've just completed my visit to Monteriggioni I'm somewhat burdened by the sheer amount of side quests I'm expected to carry out - codex pages (and then deciphering them), Altair's armour, subject 16 memory hacks, feathers for mother, money to repair the city, money to purchase equipment, statuettes of Apollo and Artemis, Zeus and Hera... and you know, probably more that I haven't even gotten to yet. Probably secrets to find outside the animus again, too. I've only recently gotten the swordfighting tutorial, so I can't be anywhere much past the beginning of the game.

Basically, I never collected all the flags or assassinated all the Templar in the first game, and never realised the lack, so if I want to ignore all this stuff (EXCEPT WHEN THE GAME REQUIRES ME TO GET THEM - seriously, I get a mission to climb the mansion's viewpoint, even though I'd long since already done so) can I?

Actually, now that I think about it, can I skip those annoying missions by declining them? I just assumed that refusing would just force me to come back later, but can I skip them?

Thus far, I've also found Altair to be a more interesting character than Ezio, though this is more observation than complaint.