TL/DR: It feels like the consensus for this game is really unclear. Some say it's amazing and continously interesting and fun with a great story and others say it's repetive and bland with bad writing. Also does it feel like the grind is natural or artifical bc of microtransactions.

Basically I've played through AC2 and AC Brotherhood more than once and loved them. And Black Flag is in my top 5 games of all time. I played AC3 but got bored.

I'm considering getting AC Oddessy and I hear Unity and Syndicate are lackluster but there are a few things that worry me and the consensus seems so different.

Ive heard so many people and seen so many places say how beautiful the world is, the combat is exciting, the side quests are interesting and varied, and the writing is great.

And the opposite. That the world looks nice but feels hollow, the combat is alright mostly just level based, the side quests are repetitive fetch quests, and the writing is weak.

As opposed to games like Witcher 3, where most people can agree on the its strengths and faults or even games like Red Dead 2 that you either love or hate the style but everyone agrees on the quality of writing and presentation (meaning people agree on what the game is, it's just based on if you think that's good or bad). I can't get a clear answer on ACO.

And there's the situation with the microtransactions. Some say they didn't even realize it and some say it's blatantly grindy to motivate purchase.

I remember how so many people said you could ignore them in Shadow of War but it ruined the game for me and how much better the game became when you could use in game currency to purchase all the MTs, kind of proving it was an intentional grind.

I know basically most AC games are kind of a grind fest for upgrade materials and pointless item collection, but in the other games it felt like you could ignore them and technically play just the story missions, bc it wasn't an RPG. A friend of mine beat AC BF with the most minimal side questing.

But ACO you basically have no way to hurt higher level enemies, which isn't an inherit option if the game levels you naturally.

I'd buy the game and try it out but I know I'll need more than 2 hours to get an idea and then I can't return it.

It's not even that the opinions of the game are polarizing, it's that they're almost contradictory.

What do you think?

Thanks for all the great responses! After reading everything I think my plan is to get it on a deep sale (Some games I don't wait for sales some I do, this one seems like for my personal tastes I'll enjoy more not having paid full price)