Well, I've been playing this for a week now and after reading some negative comments in here (I actually skipped most of this thread to avoid any impressions having a negative impact on my expectations) and I guess my feelings are a bit mixed as well...
God of War 3 - for me - is still one of the most thrilling gaming experience I've had in many years. Naturally, expectations were pretty high.
Ascension is not bad. I think I find the story a bit more confusing. Can't say how far I am (I think chapter 13), but it feels to me, GoW3 had a more transparent story line. In that game, I liked that you knew more or less where you're going: build up your weapons and pretty much kill the main bosses (Hades, Hercules etc). I also liked the way the bosses were presented before actually facing them, so there was a nice build-up and as you progressed through the game and the plot, things just got more crazy.
Ascension just feels a bit lost to me. I'm loving the main combat, but the story is pretty lost on me. I've stopped wondering what the f*ck I'm actually doing - besides some weird illusions and some bad bosses/gods that want to kill me along the way. Then again, I've never completed GoW1 or 2 - only GoW3, so perhaps it is more difficult for me to pick up the plot given I've only really played part 3 which was easy to understand.
As for the difficulty - not sure if I think this is more difficult or not. For the record, I completed GoW3 on hard on my first attempt (though to be fair, I played it on medium until the Hades-boss at a friends place before re-starting the game on hard) - and while it was bloddy hard in the later stages of the game, the game experience was so rewarding.
Which bringts me to Ascension. I played it briefly on medium up to chapter 10, then started on hard. Now, hard is hard, the way it is supposed to be, but some moments are rather frustrating.
For example - every time you get a new element for your blades (fire, ice, energy etc), you meet the challenge of fighting against hordes of the more basic kind of enemies. Now on hard (even on normal to a certain degree), I find it increasingly difficult to stand the challenge by using the basic Square-Triangle attacks. Once they start hitting me, I get into a cycle where I am constantly being hit by multiple enemies and on hard, it doesn't take too many hits until you are dead. The only way I have successfully come to beat these enemies are by actually jumping into the air and pressing L1 (or is it R1?) to grab/pull/chain the enemies into air to me and repeat this tiresome process until all are dead. It's not a challenge like this, but then, at least, I am able to get through them without losing any life. I've tried actually killing most enemies like this and then battled the last 5 of them conventually, but damn, once they start hitting you, on hard, even then, it's too damn hard.
Am I playing this wrong or does this game just have a way of making it too difficult?
I actually find the boss battles more challenging so far, because there, it's about finding the right strategy to stay alive and beat them. Anyone having similar thoughts?