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.

I rather liked the recordings, myself. The patient interviews in particular were very nice.

Yes I liked the game more than you do, but I am now talking about the recordings.

I know Disolitude and Machina weren't the biggest fans of it...

Yea, you can go back and do the riddles and other stuff after you beat the story so why not just wait?

Anyway, I enjoyed the game and beat it in one sitting (minus short bathroom and food breaks).

All that's kept me playing all this time is the thought that it MUST get better, or everyone would hate it.

So if it doesn't get better, there's no use in my wasting any more time playing it, tbh.

I love the recordings. What I don't love is searching 500 square metres of industrial complex on three floors to find the recording hidden under a floorboard behind a wall.

Then put it aside, and seek out something more to your taste

Even the main story involves large amounts of searching this dark, depressing island to find just where the hell you're supposed to go.

And yet, I want to see the ending, because the story is quite good. So I'll keep playing. For now.

It's all about the atmosphere.

It was good.