I will say that they definitely got the spirit of the series back into this one. I highly recommend at least trying to play it. Yes, it requires Uplay, but I didn't really find it all that bad. Yes it has a few bugs, but I came across nothing that made the game impossible to finish. DO NOT focus on the storyline. This game is designed so you MUST do side quests to get experience to do the main quest. The difficulty jumps are massive from act to act.I'm relatively sure I've completed every quest and explored every crevasse. Any questions let me know. 
