I thought this was an excellent review, as usual from Eurogamer. They may be the gaming equivalent of junk food, but this quote is a pretty nice summary of the folly of stripping back a Ubisoft open world:

(…)Ubisoft open worlds are not only fun because of their formula; they are their formula. To strip it away isn’t like peeling off some old wallpaper to reveal the original brickwork. It’s lifting up the carpet to find a whacking great hole in the ground.