Does Whatever a Bat-Man Can
It would be easy to dismiss Marvel's Spider-Man as the Marvel version of Batman: Arkham City, but that's a little reductive. After all: Spider-Man has more costumes.
I'm being a bit facetious, but really, much of what Spider-Man succeeds at feels directly aped from the open-world Arkham games: you fly through the city bounding between (or over) rooftops, side-missions explore the backgrounds of various allies and villains from the comics, and although Spidey can be upgraded to take more bullets than the Dark Knight could, the overall flow of combat is pretty similar.
And then there are the definitively not subtle imitations. Fighting Rhino felt a whole lot like fighting Bane. The third-act prison break is a thematic copy of Arkham City's first-act prison break. Screwball's insipid challenges and psychotic banter are almost verbatim from the Riddler. And Scorpion's hallucinatory sequences are a dead ringer for Batman's Scarecrow segments.
This isn't necessarily bad. Sometimes it feels ... uninspired, but if you're going to copy mechanics and themes from another game, you may as well copy from one of the best. Spider-Man's strongest gameplay is almost as fun as Batman's was.
Unfortunately, Spider-Man takes way too long getting to those parts. Until that third-act prison break, there's virtually no excitement or tension either in following the main story or in prowling the open world. The game's first two acts haplessly plod from one shallow reference to another, while waiting for the Mister Negative story to slowly progress. And until that story progress occurs, the activities available in the open world are relatively scant (and dull).
The first two thirds of the game serve little purpose other than making the player wonder how long it is until Doctor Octavius "turns," and forcing the player to watch Peter's cringey attempts at making up with Mary Jane.
To be fair, those moments aren't very numerous, and the early and middle game isn't "bad" per se -- it just tends to be pretty boring. Things don't get really interesting until the Sinister Six show up in Act 3, which thankfully is much more action-packed and engaging than everything before it.
Spider-Man is a well-polished and, ultimately, fun enough game; but it doesn't exceed its forebears, and takes its sweet time working up to them.
... as an aside, one thing that could really have helped Spider-Man stand out more is art style. This game doesn't really have one; it looks too realistic. The unlockable Comic Book Suit made me wish that the whole game had looked that cool.
Better than: Transformers: Devastation
Not as good as: Batman: Arkham Asylum
Also not as good as: Spider-Man: Homecoming or Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.