Playing as any of the older easter factions, be it nomadic Mongols, variety of Indian rulers or outright the newly added Tibethian culteres the game will run differently with the Chinese Emperor ever watching towards it's western borders and protectorates.
New retinues, especially the Tibethian mountaineers bring forth new tactics, you might not assume 100 LC and 400 LI make a good retinue, but you might be surprised. The Chinese honor guard is also a fun little force you can raise for free.

I had my doubts about this game and got dragged by a friend to buy it. Glad I did, quite sometime since I last had so much fun with a stealth game.
The stealth/"predator like" surprise kills and quick movement using your shadow-powers really made the game for me. Note, that despite my two attempts having often resulted in rather fast set play style, this isn't a fighting game, there is no parrying, no striking with a sword. You have a very short window of time to execute a guard that noticed you.
The abilities are fun, many of them reminded me of Korvo's stealthier abilities. The shadow kills are a longer to execute kill animation, but deal with the body as you feed the soldiers of light to cute wobbly creatures of the shadow realm.
I started enjoying the artstyle more as game progressed and the maps were rather well designed so you can indeed do a few replays since you can't actually unlock the no kills and everyone killed at one go. These result in new comical ninja outfits.
The plot is a bit silly and predictable, our characters are rather stylized ninjas and we work for a maiden in distress. The plot didn't get in the way of my fun.
Lastly, I do have to warn you, nothing can harm you except the Sun, the water, the "Light Swords", "light arrows" exploding light Wisps and random holes in the ground that apparently weren't meant to be explored. Seriously though, do not jump in any water over your ankle, I drowned in a knee high well.