I understand the frustration of the slow horse in cities but at the same time I think I understand why they did that.

Since games want to be "realistic" they traded some of the unrealistic parts(such as combat, stealth, or jumping into a hay bale from an absurd height) for something that can be made to seen "realistic"you know, slowing down the horse through a city.

I'm not defending the decision, yeah it's annoying to be slower than walking

So I haven't played an AC game since Origins and I started Shadows on expert. Played for 5ish hours and got nowhere, the AI is so much better than I ed ha. Had to drop it down to normal, now that I've got a feel for the game again, I might bump it back up to expert but we'll see. It's sad but I'm enjoying the it on normal