You don't feel Assassin's Creed 1 was marketed as the first true next-gen game?
To be honest I don't really remember that long ago, plus I've never been interested in AC.
But IIRC Watch Dogs sold a ton more than AC1 did, I tried to find AC1 sales but couldn't so I could be wrong about that in that case just ignore me. So even if it was marketed as the next big thing, I don't think the average consumer took it as that.