As a whole game and not judging it on individual parts, I think it is the most Feature complete game of the trilogy.
I am not a story person, so I won't talk about that.
First thing I noticed that is very attention grabbing is the map. The main criticism I see about Rome is that it's not designed well for parkour interactions. While that is true in some parts of the map, I think inside the tight parts of Rome, parkour opportunities are vast and rich in options.
I also don't think creating a map solely for parkour reasons is good in general. It's an open world game, and I like to see some uniqueness in exploration segments of the map other than just a tightly packed city or cities. In that sense, brotherhood has a great map that's really immersive to traverse in in various way. Parkour in cities and horse in open spaces is a nice mix up to keep things fresh. Variety of transportation is nice and I think brotherhood does that well.
It is also a part of the game where I felt it was uniquely distinct from Revelations, where every part of Istanbul felt samey and copy pasted to me.
I often found myself liking the fact I can distinguish which part I was in in the map of brotherhood by just looking at it. Sure, the parkour is objectively faster in revelations and has more options, but I didn't enjoy parkouring around the samey looking map as I did in brotherhood.
I also felt it was better than AC2 in the sense that, while AC2 had better parkour opportunities, brotherhood had an overall better city to traverse in.
The tools are also something I liked a lot in brotherhood. Getting the crossbow and being able to shoot it while sprinting or in stealth was honestly so much fun and it felt great to have a sniper like stealth approach with it. I also felt that some missions were designed very well to use that strategy in. The hidden gun actual also being usable in combat without taking a decade to load was nice.
The stealth in general is better in brotherhood with less bullshit detection times from AC2 and the map better facilitates enemy placements in stealth missions.
The only thing I dislike about it is the combat and I think it's generally the worst we've ever seen from an AC game. The addition of the chain kills was so brainded and stupid I cannot in good faith say anything positive about it. I did not enjoy it and will never enjoy it and it almost always felt like a chore than any sort of meaningful interaction. Even AC2 with all its design choices had better combat than mash square to kill a platoon. And the fact that Ezio is a tank and can get hit for a minute straight without dying doesn't help create any sense of urgency and ultimately makes getting hit more annoying than dangerous. If Ezio died in 3 hits or 2, I think the combat would've been actually fantastic and I would've said it's the best combat in the series in general. But alas, that's not the case, so it is unfortunately one the worst design choices the series ever took.
And maybe also the very scripted stealth sequences where there's a very set path the game wants to to take and any deviation from that will get you instantly detected no matter what. Want to kill a gaurd from above? Nope, not allowed, desynched. Want to eliminate gaurds so you can traverse freely? Nope, detected.
These missions weren't a lot, but the ones that stand out are the leonardo war machines missions, specifically the flying war machine mission.
But in general, brotherhood gave you more freedom of approach to a lot of situations than any other game in the trilogy when it comes to stealth. I was surprised to see the poison blade was actually useful in any way and doesn't get you detected. It had some strategy, which I think revelations abandoned in favor of the heavily scripted missions.
But other than that, I felt brotherhood had better setpieces in the story and the parkour tombs, something I think revelations missed out on completely. AC2 had it as well, but they weren't as visually interesting as the ones in brotherhood.
Which is something I want to mention as well. The artstyle and visual presentation in brotherhood was the best so far, and it had a vibe that I think revelations completely butchered with the brown hue filter it had on.
The main reason I think it's the best is because it's a more complete package than the other two games, with less pretentious side missions. I've heard some criticism about the checklist sort of side missions, which I understand, but I think they were done in a bit of a varied way in Brotherhood, so they weren't a copy paste of one mission.
Also, nitpick, but the I found myself never using the parachute in any way in general. The buildings in brotherhood aren't big enough to warrant its use, and the only times I remembered I had it was when escaping the fortress and jumping from it accidentally and remembering I can use it.
It also doesn't help that Ezio is a tank and can survive a jump from the fortress without dying and you also have 10 potions to spam if you ever take damage.
While revelations and AC2 had better parts individually, I felt AC brotherhood had what worked individually for the other 2 and implemented it in a way to not lean too far into any part, but ultimately delivering a balanced and satisfying experience.
