At first I was a bit skeptical because I don't play superhero games. I'm more of a RPG/FPS kinda guy, and tend to look at superhero games with a skeptical frown. The reviews and the steam sale won me over so I got it because if there is one superhero game that I would play, it would be a batman game, and I really enjoyed the christian bale batman movies. This batman is obviously different than the bale movies though, much more orientated on the comics I would say if you were wondering.
Damn, I was not expecting it to be this good though. This is seriously the best action combat system I've ever played with, its fluid and also allows you to get creative and it keeps adapting and changing when you unlock more moves and abilities and there's a lot of enemy variety, as they also change and are able to do additional attacks to you as the game progresses. It's addictingly fun. I mean, you can even use batmans arsenal of gadgets DURING the combat for even crazier **** if you want.
PROS:
Amazing dynamic combat system, one of the best I've ever experienced in gaming.
Open-world travel, go where you want when you want.
Skill tree customization
Many different gadgets that can be used creatively in combat or to solve puzzles
Many different puzzles and optional side-missions
This game is gorgeous visually, and is perfect for batman.
Amazing voice acting, great story, great sound.
Lots of familiar characters make an appearance.
Decent boss fights. Tons of batman lore.
Cons:
I honestly can't think of anything really bad to say about this other than its single player only, which technically isn't even a con when the game is this good.
I wish the world was a little bigger, but there's plenty of places to explore here.
No vehicles. It would have been nice to be able to drive some of batmans vehicles, car, plane, sub, but alas this world that the game takes place in simply isn't big enough to warrant the need for them.
Traveling around is also fantastic. I thought using the grappling hook would be limited or hard to use, but basically anything you see with a ledge you can use the hook and its REALLY use to use it. You can also glide around with the cape, its incredibly fluid and easy to use. Whoever designed these systems is seriously a genius.
The graphics and art style are simply amazing and it's absolutely perfect for the batman theme, and it runs well on my 5970, i7-2600k, at max settings which is an old card nowadays, so I'm sure it will run even better on newer hardware. The level of detail here though is astounding. When you stop and take the little things in, its just amazing. Same goes for the audio, like little things when you're perched on top of the railing of a fire escape you can hear the metal start to groan. It's little things like this that blow my mind while playing this game. The voice acting is also incredible, and the facial animations are also some of the best I've ever seen. I haven't finished the game as of writing this review but the plot so far is engaging.
I have played the game for 33 hours so far and it still seems like there is a lot to do.
The puzzles are also fun, because you can tell actual thought went into them. They're tricky and you actually have to think about how to solve a lot of them by getting creative with the gadgets which I find I like because it offers breaks in the combat, and the good thing is that the majority of them are completely optional. There's also a ton of side quests as well, and if you have the DLC's you can actually play as other characters other than batman which is also cool because they have their own unique combat systems.
If there's one thing I hate its buying a game that I'm not going to play afterwards, but if anything I have to STOP myself from playing this because I can burn 5 hours in what seems like 20 minutes while playing this game. If I could find anything to complain about I would be complaining, but there's honestly literally nothing bad I can say about this game other than the fact that its single player, but I mean you're batman, I mean who needs Multiplayer if you're playing as batman? Right, no one.
Probably one of the best overall games I've played in a long time. These game mechanics blow my mind every time I'm in the game. True masterpiece.