Were you watching the in-game cinematics, or the gameplay? The later looks pretty much like the past iterations did.
Having said that, though, the past couple of games were really gorgeous for a sandbox title. Hell, the first one is still beautiful, though repetitive, in its own right.
And PC owners should be happy--Ubisoft said they're ditching their always-on DRM for their PC games going forward. This should hopefully mean you won't have to mod the DRM out of your game, just so you can play it offline.