Maybe if you look at the games in isolation, maybe then? The problem for many (especially for testers) was the fatigue of massive Assassins Creed games with so many meaningless stuff added around an actual good game. And later things like microtransactions ruined the fun for lot of people too. And the later games even didn’t do anything particularly original or was very perfected games to stick out.

So therefore many testers didn’t “champion” the Assassins Creed games anymore. It had its fans, especially longtime players in the series. But those are not who decide if a game gets an award or what rating it has. So even if players like the games, that is disconnected from the testers of various outlets.