Watch Dogs 2 hands-on: All I want to do is drive around and admire digital San Francisco

It was a throwaway comment that launched the developer watching over my shoulder into a lengthy explanation of licensing deals and how it would be prohibitively expensive for Ubisoft to get real brands into Watch Dogs 2. But I think he unintentionally missed my point. I wasn't saying "I'm disappointed this isn't a Hard Rock Cafe." To be honest, I'm not sure anyone has ever uttered that sequence of words. What I meant was, "I'm amazed this recreation of San Francisco is so spot-on that I can match each building to its real-world counterpart." I have little inherent faith or interest in Watch Dogs 2. After the middling mess of the first game, I find it hard to get excited about what's essentially just modern-day Assassin's Creed, with all of its banalities but without the simultaneous history lesson and ten years of sunk-cost fallacy to keep me playing.