No. The story in AC1 was definitely the best of the series. The combat too, though I love the combat in Brotherhood.

AC1 was fucking merciless in its approach to the combat and detection. In AC1 if you managed to get the guards attention they would not stop hunting you. EVER. There was no circle of interest that you had to evade. Unless you found a haystack or tent those fuckers would find you and they would crowd you until you were forced to fight to the death.

And the combat was tough. Yes it didn't have the polish and versatility of AC2 and Brotherhood, but it was super satisfying. When you successfully managed to parry and attack one after another it felt immensely satisfying. Those last levels where you had to fight upwards of twenty soldiers AND Robert de Sable at once where amazing in the reward you felt.

AC2 and Brotherhood ruins all this by giving you too many energy bars and so many medicine potions that you never need fear dying in a combat situation. What more with powers like the smoke bomb any difficulty is ruined because you can just drop a bomb and shank everyone around you or run away.

Similarly in AC2 and Brotherhood, the guards will just stand, allowing you to walk right up to them and stab two people at one in the necks with no resistance. Then you can walk over to the guys next to them and do the same once more. I think I once managed to stab 6 people in the neck before they drew their swords. In AC1 if you tried this tricks on a guard that was aware of you they'd simply push you away and then you were in for a real fight. This seems like a small detail but it completely ruins any subtlety or trepidation you might have in facing more than a few opponents.

And then there is the story. I love the conspiracy stuff and it is what keeps me coming back to the series. If anything AC2 and Brotherhood did this much better than AC1. But that is Desmonds story.

Gone is the deep philosophical discussion underlying the story of AC1. The question of how to use power. Who has the right? Can you trust the public to take care of it self or is it better to let a strong man rule? Is doing an evil deed for the sake of good truly evil? Every man that Altair found and killed in AC1 had his own reasons for doing the bad things he did.

One was starving the cities population because he was building up the cities granary for a coming siege.

Another was experimenting and drugging sick and poor people because he wanted to cure mental illness.

Another one again lead a brutal regime in his city but in his wake he left a city with little corruption or crime.

Every time Altair killed one of these men he was forced to ask himself if killing these men was the right thing. Over all the Templars were portrayed as a shadowy group of master manipulators who sought to rule and control not for their own good but for the sake of mankind (how ever cruel that may be).

In AC2 and Brotherhood all this is gone. The people Ezio face are just assholes. Men who kill and steal and terrorise because they can. People who are only consumed by greed and maliciousness. None of them besides Borgia in AC2 seem to have any involvement with the ideas of the templars and that plan. This means that AC2 and Bro just become shallow stories of one families fight against another one. The petty infighting of the middleages nobility.