I plan to buy this game next week. It's my GotY right after Mass Effect. I seriously don't get all the hate. AC was never supposed to be a stealth game. True, the gameplay heavily relys on the player to make it interesting. It's a sand box game. So if you rush through the game and do all the same things on every mission (because you have a deadline for your review) of course it's going to be boring.

Here's another review I quite like. It's the second blog entry on that site and the relevant stuff starts about halfway through. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/11/14)