He's wrong. One particular mission has you sneaking across a battlefield, dodging enemy line fire, circling around the back, dispatching some guards, climbing a cliff and sneaking through an encampment to take out the general. This is one of the reasons I started the "common complaints are false" thread.
The difference between the newer games and the past games is that the targets have been given personalities so they're no longer static targets to be taken out from behind. Some need to be chased, others stopped before they assassinate a target themselves. Just different scenarios. People believing the story missions should always be the same robotic mechanic over an over are weird. That's why they gave us Templar dens and forts. To relive the simple "sneak in and take out the target" gametype.
First of all, that's a story mission, the assassination missions (like the pidgeon coups) are gone, and replaced by kill "random pedestrian with target symbol on its head" without any setup.
Second of all, in which Assassin's Creed the people you killed in the story missions didn't have a personality? Surely not in AC1 and 2.