Clearly, this was an entertaining game as I was willing to put this much time into it; however, it is far from my favorite--even within the Assassin's Creed franchise. I'm glad that they have improved the meta-story from the past six games. They did an excellent job of tapping back into the Desmond storyline from the first several games in a compelling way. I also deeply appreciated that stealth was always just an option, rather than a way to bring me to the game over screen. The game is also beautiful, if not quite up to Ghost of Tsushima quality.
However, to truly love this game, one must love long walks, runs or rides from one far away location to another. In fact, two of the main story elements at the end forced both a long horse ride and a long, slow walk without any dialogue to fill the arduously slow minutes. Another thing that one must enjoy is making choices with little idea as to which ones are important to the story and with often misleading information (thankfully, there are plenty of helpful people on the Internet to help avoid unnecessary pitfalls). One also needs to be fine with murder, lots and lots of murder--and pillaging, lots and lots of pillaging. Sure, it has "assassin" in the title and is focused on a Viking story, so one should expect some death, but even with the ability to turn off the blood and gore, the violence in this game seemed to be (pardon the expression) overkill. Add to that the continual blasphemy uttered by the main character and her friends (they are Vikings, after all), and there were points in this game that I got really uncomfortable.
My biggest gripe is how the game's writers treated the historical figure of King Alfred the Great. It made sense that he was one of the primary antagonists against our Viking protagonist considering his historical role in fighting off Viking invaders. However, they presented him as callous, brutal, and without honor. Sure, they redeemed him a bit at the very, very end, but even that felt sudden and unearned. The Assassin's Creed series often plays fast and loose with historical figures and events, but this time it really bothered me.
I don't plan on playing this game again, even to find some of the hidden gems (such as Excalibur). I think that it was certainly worth playing, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes open world games (or, you know, murder). However, this might be it for me and the Assassin's Creed series.