It's your choice to interpret it that way, but I don't think the AC team ever claimed that showing off "exotic locations" was a goal of the series. Not to mention that "exotic" is subjective depending on where you live.
Alright, thanks for clearing that up.
Architecture style aside, how does it not? The vast majority of AC cities are filled with two to three story buildings and smallish churches and towers. And that's what I see in the shot.
It's just the architecture, as far as I'm concerned. I'm a bit of a history buff (hence my love for this franchise); the architecture in the colonies was all built from the ground up in a short period of time, representing very few styles (none of which are all that far removed from modernity). The other locales felt like they had a real age to them.
I don't doubt this will be a "great" game, whatever that means in the objective sense. I'm just not getting that same historical sense of scale from the screenshots. Going from Crusade-era Jerusalem and Renaissance Italy, to pre-indepenence Boston? You lose some of the historical grandeur. At least that's how it strikes me. If that's not important to you, or if your aesthetics are different, then it won't be an issue.