I'm not a History major and normally I wouldn't bother looking for the real story that the game is based upon, but in this instance Visceral Games and by extent EA Games took a real life part of history and mocked it up into an action game with lots of nudity lots of violence and a good distortion of the facts.  I realize that the following the story to the letter would make a boring video game, but was it necessary to make a 13th century Italian poet a 12th century crusader who was under the command of Richard the Lionheart (the English King at the time) when to my knowledge it was the French, Germans, and English who sent armies to the Holy Land on the Second Crusade.  Not to mention that in the poem Dante was not a warrior and had to be rescued at times. As for the visual depiction of characters and especially the church's bishop turning into demonic forms, I'm inclined to believe that that particular decision had more to do with stirring up controversy for attention than anything else, but that's just my opinion. 
  The gameplay which many have alluded to has a very strong God of War knockoff vibe to it which I have no particular problem with but it sounds like a lack of originality and creativity was the parent of this game and its overlying story, and the fact that the ending implies that there is a possibility of a sequel just leaves me with a feeling of trying to make money and not provide gamers with a feeling of value. As for the DLC which would extend the gameplay, I can't see myself buying it unless it gets severely discounted. considering I would have to spend almost the same amount on the DLC as I did on the game itself.