None of what you said applies to Revelations and not Brotherhood. I ignored most of the new additions to ACR, because they weren't so good in execution. Tower Defense is the only offensively bad one, but Mediterranean defense and recruiting Assassins lost something in the transition between the two. I'm not saying Revelations is a worse game, because I liked the story and characters more, and ideas like the Hookblade are great, but I sincerely hope AC3 focuses less on the sidequests and more on the core game. Those sidequests aren't, and never have been, the real appeal of the series. Revelations is bogged down in sidequests that aren't compelling, which is a real shame.
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"When I was a young man, I had liberty, but I did not see it. I had time, but I did not know it."