I wouldn't say it's bad, just average.
The epic Batman combat involves mashing square. And sometimes pressing triangle, but that's optional.
The epic Batman stealth involves swinging between gargoyles and kicking people, then being shot and swinging between gargoyles again.
The so-called riddles for the world's greatest detectives aren't riddles, they're painstaking searches of large rooms in order to find miniscule details and scan them. The first one was a riddle of sorts, but it was painstakingly obvious what he was referring to, and extremely annoying when he made it yet more obvious when clearly you're just looking for a portrait of Warden Sharp.
And these riddles seriously mess up the flow of the game. I can't possibly ignore all of these riddles and collectibles and recordings and just continue with the main mission, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. So I end up searching every nook and cranny of a large area for anything that could possibly fit the riddle, and scanning them all. And I still can't find it, and only then do I give up.
Is there something I'm missing here, something which turns this from a generic superhero brawler with some poorly designed riddles, into this GoTY-worthy masterpiece that everyone else seems to see? Does it get better later on? Because I liked the demo, thinking "Hmm, this will just be a small portion of what's in the game". But after a good few hours of play, that's all that is in the game.
EDIT: After progressing a little further in the game, it does seem to be improving. So, if you gave up on this game early on, give it another try, because the first couple of hours (well, they were a couple of hours for me, trying to solve all of the Riddler's scavenger hunts) are pretty painful, but once you get some new combat and stealth options, it goes uphill quickly.
I still wouldn't call it GoTY material, but it's a solid game.
(Former) Lead Moderator and (Eternal) VGC Detective 
