Jak 2, Uncharted 2 and Assassins Creed 2.
I thoght Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, was okay, but I didn't enjoy their kind of free-world. Then Jak2 came along and gave us the perfect kind of free-world and great overall gameplay.
I enjoyed Uncharted: Drake's Fortune a bit, but it dragged on for way too long with their gunfights, and it was at the point where I had been shooting bad guys for so long I hoped for a cutscene to come, just to avoid having to play the game. That is not a good sign.
Uncharted 2 on the other hand took away the reppetitiveness with more interesting platforming, always going on with a companion alongside of you for some fun dialog along the way. There are alot of gun-fights, sure, but they made the really long ones interesting with alot of stuff happending mid-fight (Like a Hellicopter, or a tank suddenly coming out of nowhere to get you, really spices the game up).
And lastly there is Assassins Creed. I fucking hated Assassins Creed. There were 3 mission types that dragged on forever, and to find them you had to climb up the tallest freakin' tower in all of the land, very slowly...1534324 times. It also didn't help that on your way to the towers you would always be chased by guards for breaking the running speed limit apparently. And even if you thought you got away from them and start to climb up the tower, there's still a chance of them seeing you and throw a rock at you, causing you to fall down, then having to kill them, and then persuing to climb the fucking tower.
Assassins Creed 2 improved on all of this. They added alot of different mission types, although there are more than enough of escort missions, and not in the usual faschion of having to protect them. No, in these escort missions, all you do is walk to a set point very slowly while listening to your companions having a boring chat.
But the games still improved. They've made it possible to skip climbing the fucking towers this time, so that you'll only have to climb them if you want to know where the vendors are, or the hidden boxes with cash.
While yes, the vendors and cash boxes are good to know where they are, it's not as annoying to climb the fucking towers this time around. Ubisoft finally decided to add a fast climb button, which I've never be able to continue on without.