So I'm not going to go all overblown with a rant here as everyone's had an opinion on the quest design at some point on here. I am however going to give you a brief run down of my experience whilst playing through the Dark Brotherhood quest line. If you don't want spoilers on this front then I suggest you stop reading now. I'll try not to give the game away totally but it's impossible to not mention certain aspects.
So suffice to say I was ordered to kill someone who lives in a particular city, let's call it City X. All good. I was also told that I was to kill this someone in a very public way in front of a lot of witnesses in City X. Again no problem whatsoever there. So I I go to City X, kill the target in front of 50 witnesses and promptly leg it. Great.
I then go back to collect my reward and am given another target to kill. Excellent. I'm told that in order to receive a bonus I mustn't kill this target on the road but in a major city. Now because of a bug with a certain item detailing where said target will be on certain days I had to just follow said target to the first major city and try and kill them there. 'What city is this?', I here you ask. Well it's City X. You know the one where I'm now wanted for murdering someone very publicly. Upon entering City X I am immediately set upon by every guard in the place and my target joins in the ass kicking too. So I reload and try again. This time I agree to pay the bounty. After paying the bounty I am teleported to the guard station and upon returning to my original position find that the target has [censored] off. I reload again. This time I just kill the bastard on the road and ignore the reward I'm now going to lose out on. Sigh.
So I go back to collect my quest reward (and get a dressing down for not killing the target as instructed) and receive another quest which instructs me to go and meet with a guard leader. Guess where he resides? Yep, City X. So I change my clothes in a vain attempt to enter the city undetected but am promptly attacked on sight once again the moment the game loads up. I run like a lunatic and find solace in the shadows. I bide my time and find my way to the guard I am supposed to meet. I walk up to him and am immediately attacked by his merry band of guards and the man himself. Ugh. Right so at this point I decide to reload AGAIN and pay off my bounty before I go for the meet. Success at last.
Now I know what a few of you Bethesda nut huggers are going to say, 'Well you should've just paid the bounty in the first place, duh'. Well yes I probably should have in retrospect, but why the [censored] should I have to use my psychic future powers to make up for the world's [censored]test quest design? At no point did someone not raise an objection to having someone publicly murder a VIP in a certain city, resulting in a huge bounty, and then having the rest of the quest line take place in the exact same area? I mean I'm supposed to be a great assassin with the Dark Brotherhood, not a [censored] who has to pay guards to leave him alone. I mean from a logic stand point what happened was ludicrous. I murdered a VIP in front of everyone, paid off a bounty for said murder and then promptly met up with the head of security while a massive security overhaul was taking place to avoid an even bigger VIP from also being killed. Yeh sign that design off baby!
Despite everything I am really enjoying this game, BUT it is criminally unfinished and IMO should've been kept in development for some serious polishing before release. What we've got is a game that is like a big tease. Hey you could be playing something incredible but we really couldn't be bothered to go the extra ten yards to get it to that point, so enjoy this buggy beta instead!
edit:
Oh and yes I realise just how ironic my initial statement about not going on a rant is. What can I say, I like to rant