Batman: Arkham City

What's most surprising about Arkham City is how it doesn't fall short of the bar set by Arkham Asylum. There are certainly some imperfections in the sequel, and the new features are arguably hit-or-miss -- but despite trading in its linearity for an open-world structure, Arkham City doesn't sacrifice the strengths of its predecessor. This is still a superbly-executed action game with a gripping narrative and spectacular production values. And - while it isn't perfect - the fact that it adds to Arkham Asylum's formula makes it an undeniably superior game.

I can enumerate its issues in pretty short order:

• Arkham City assumes that you've played Asylum, and recently. You'll start with many of the gadgets that Batman acquired throughout the first game, and much of the tutorial for these is simply left out. It can take a while to re-learn.
• Especially at first, there are too many enemies in combat encounters. This becomes more bearable with upgrades, but so long as you have a limited move set, it can be a little repetitive.
• The story is not paced as well as it could have been. There is a huge stretch in the middle of the campaign with little involvement from the Joker; no involvement whatsoever from intriguing new villain, Hugo Strange; and no Catwoman sequences, either. Then in the story's final hours, you're locked into the story completely, and the game won't permit you to take a few minutes off for side-questing.
• Relatedly, the Catwoman content is totally forgettable. She doesn't have as many or as powerful abilities as Batman, she barely comes up throughout Batman's campaign, and her personal story just isn't interesting. If you buy a used copy of Arkham City for console, don't worry about missing this stuff.
• On the other hand, the amount of items and clues you need to scavenge to complete the Riddler sidequest is absurd: ultimately, you need 400 things, between trophies and riddles and other minor challenges. This number is so great, in fact, that if you find all of the trophies and riddles that Batman can solve, it still isn't enough; you need to add some combination of combat/stealth challenges (which are largely trite and stupid), and/or Catwoman trophies. So, if it wasn't for Catwoman, I might not have finished the Riddler sidequest.

So those are my gripes. And I can detail them at some length, because they stand out from an otherwise fantastic game. When the pacing isn't off, the story is just as strong as in Arkham Asylum, even though you can (usually) take arbitrary breaks to search for hidden items and track down sidequest clues. Arkham City isn't as dense with activity as a Saints Row, or as fun to traverse as a Grand Theft Auto, but the individual pieces of content throughout the city are strong and meaningful.

And the combat is an improvement over Asylum's, although I still wouldn't enjoy it enough on its own merits to bother with the standalone combat challenges. There are new gadgets and new combos, but arguably the best new feature is (after upgrades) an enhanced focus in ongoing free-flow combos -- slowing down time around the Batman, while increasing his ability to jump between thugs, which is indispensible in encounters with large groups.

There are a few clear missteps, but Arkham City is still a step forward from Arkham Asylum, which was already a masterpiece. It's unfortunate that the extra content (Catwoman, and the thus-far released DLC) is so insubstantial, because this game is going to be a tough act to follow.

Better than: Batman: Arkham Asylum
Not as good as: Saints Row: The Third (in open-world terms, obviously)
The Riddler sidequest conclusion was a bit disappointing: given the ludicrous amount of time I sunk into it. But I guess I would have wanted to collect all the trophies anyway.

Progress: Finished the story and all sidequests on Normal