I felt the same at first and I ended up despising it by the end.
Spoiler
The endless grind and the endless fetch quests and the stupid characters and the stupid sex scenes which were obviously written intending you to play as Alexios, absolutely ridiculous if you played as Kass, and the goddamn "ending".
One of the most frustrating and irritating games I've ever played. Oh, and the horse riding is an absolute chore.
Can't disagree more - Odyssey was good, involving, I like the plot (bit predictable but oh well). Dialogue great, Kassandra so warm, and the relationships feel, generally, fine. (Kassandra is the canon main character)
As for horse riding being a chore - er, I came to it after Red Dead 2. You press a button to get on a horse and aim it, you don't even need to press anything to gallow... shrug, don't know how that's a chore, besides, I started my game just unlocking all the fast travel spots
Maybe if you hammer the main quest the edges show more, and sure, a lot of the quests are the boring old fetchquests; I get that. But that's why I space it out with exploration, fighting mercenaries and cultists