So after some initial skepticism, then cautious optimism at the demo I got around to playing the full game (on PC with a 360 pad) and must admit to being duly impressed.
Minor niggles about obvious mocap and excessive shinyness remain - also why the hell
press A to run? ... like
Mario 64 never happened - but really, it looks stunning with sound to match and, more importantly, when you start getting into the more open areas and acquire a few more gadgets and abilities the gameplay really opens up.
It succeeds simultaneously at capturing the effortless hand-to-hand brawling Batman is capable of AND the cat & mouse game of invisibly picking off increasingly nervous thugs one by one.
I thought some of the Riddler achievements were better than others. The riddles connected to objects in the world and the invisible question marks were really clever, but the hidden trophies are stupid and neither fit the fiction nor add anything to gameplay.
Not really a spoiler but just in case:
Spoiler:I wasn't as blown away by the Scarecrow sections as I was led to expect since others like Vampire Bloodlines and Alice have done this sort of thing before, messing with space and perception... but it was pretty good.
To even refer to this as a good license game is doing it a disservice. This is an excellent stealth/action-adventure entirely on its own merits.
