EA has followed in their footsteps by forcing Command & Conquer 4 players to remain connected to EA's servers while playing in multi or single player miode. If there is an interruption in your internet connection your game will be suspended - even in single-player mode.
EA has apparently not learned anything from the failure that was Spore. In this game, there was very harsh DRM, and you also needed to be connected to the internet sometimes, I think? And EA lost a bunch of money on this game, I think...
On the Mass Effect forums (when EA/Bioware tried do something similar some years ago) I argues 1) not everyone has an always-on connection and 2) in the country (even in Denmark) people can't get broadbands connections that's fast enough to have access to the internet always and 3) people sho serve in the military (in the US, Denmark and other countries) have a lot of spare time. They use this spare time to play videogames. And they pay pr. minute they play.
If we look at Assasin's Creed 2, it looks like that it only is the PC game that is requuring people to be always connected to the internet while playing single-player games. Then, of course, there's the danger that Ubisoft's servers are down, simply because of the pressure from gamers that want to play their game, be it Assasin's Creed or Settlers 7 (seven).
To come back to the always connected to the internet story, EA executives seems to think that everyone in the world must be on the same page as them e.g. always being connected to the internet. Just because EA's execs are connected to the internet always, doesn't mean that people out in the country, or way out int he country, are conected to the internet as well.