StingingVelvet: I really like tweakguides and thought his article was excellent, thanks for mentioning it. His longer article on piracy in general is very worth reading, especially if you are someone who thinks it is not a big problem or not hurting PC gaming.
I really don't agree with his "offline protection doesn't work" stance though. Sins of a Solar Empire,The Witcher and Dragon Age are proof against that (Sins sold 500k, Witcher sold 1.3m, BioWare has said PC sales were great).
Coelocanth: According to TweakGuides, the way it's implemented on AC2 is very unobtrusive. Basically, you really only have to worry if you have a spotty connection and are trying to start the game up. If it goes down while you're playing, there's no big issue, as you can choose to save your game locally and continue on. The DRM will only prevent you from starting the game if you're not connected when trying to fire the game up.
That's not true. If you lose your connection, you can't continue playing. He shows this in the article. When it says on the box "permanent connection required", it means just that.
Crassmaster: Someone on another forum whose word I trust picked up Silent Hunter V. In the case of that game, if your connection drops during game play, it doesn't affect the game. You can keep going and it will save locally. When you start the next time, you NEED an Internet connection, then the saves will sync up (with whichever has more forward progress 'winning out').
He pulled his network cable during play to test it, and that's what happened. Makes sense...there are no checkpoints for autosave opportunities in a game like SHV.
Ask him if it says 'permanent connection required' on the box like AC2 (if he bought retail).