Arkham City is everything that Arkham Asylum was but improved in almost every way. Rocksteady kept true to their excellent action, stealth, gadgetry and puzzle-solving formula and made improvements only where they were needed. The freeflow combat and silent predator systems also make a welcome comeback. Where Arkham Asylum was a bit more rigid in it's story telling, Arkham City makes the improvement of creating a more open world and adding well-integrated side missions that have some meaning to the main story and makes the game feel less linear. Again the voice acting is top-notch and the pacing and progression of the story is a high-point of this title.

Largely fixing the control problems of Arkham Asylum on PC, Arkham City takes you and throws you into a large environment that allows you to explore and fight in many different interesting and entertaining ways.

Control problems out of the way, you are largely free to play the game without concern for what is happening next, you can just go with the flow and not worry about a lack of gadgets. Of course, Arkham Asylum's silly idea of RPG elements are still around, and shouldn't be, but the developer needed to shoehorn in a reason to collect things - other than just it being an entertaining set of puzzles.

Unfortunately it does have a problem with game design, Batman does not fight armies of men in hand to hand combat... He fights small groups from time to time, but it is quite rare to see Batman taking on 50 men. Yet in this game, it happens on several occasions, as though the developers wanted you to feel super badass for doing this amazing thing that Batman would think is incredibly stupid and a waste of his time. Batman does not take down armies, he would use a clever gadget to take down most of them, and then mop up the rest.

The game is fun, the story is a bit contrived, but that is kind of standard for Batman stories.

I could easily recommend this game to players.

Rocksteady, after reviving our hopes in superhero games with Arkham Asylum, have dreamt big: bringing the well established Dark Knight formula to open world. A task that first sounded too great even after everything the developer has given us in the first game. Fear not, they upped the ante.

Our favorite detective is forced to Arkham City occupied by thugs, gangsters, super-villains and Dr. Strange's guards. Initially we only know that he is after Strange who is preparing an experiment, which he calls "Protocol 10". The main plot of the game isn't the strongest we have ever experienced, but diverse enough to keep our heads spinning in every half hour or so. Even if Strange isn't the typical main villain you'd expect from a game like this, the others keep the show running. Boy, and how well. Joker, Two-Face, Penguin are only the most famous ones to recognize. Even the minor villains give splendid performances that will make you feel you're in an action packed DC comic book. Only this time around you're the one who beats up the bad guys. The ending of the game will keep you scratching your head and maybe this time - and this time only - Rocksteady took on more that they could bear...

The game has excellent graphical representation pushing the unreal engine to it's limits. The older engine sometimes shows it's limits with slowly loading textures and load screens in open areas. However, from artistic perspective it's breathtaking. You can read stories about the city or it's unwanted "residents", listen to crazy interviews taped by Strange with the greatest villains that will uncover some of their background stories and let us see what has happened before the place was opened. It's exactly this where the game comes to full circle, not just being a super enjoyable action-superhero game, but a true part of the Batman legacy. The music and voice acting are top notch. Listening to an well composed orchestral piece before hearing Mark Hamill's voice behind The Joker is true joy and no fan could ask for more in that respect.

The freeflow combat introduced in Arkham Asylum returns with an array of gadgets that can be deployed in combat. The combat is so well balanced that it will be easy for everybody to pick up, but very difficult to master as Batman has plenty of moves in his pocket. You can choose to hit or counter each enemy when you are attacked, but there will always be a second, third or eighth move to pull. It's a mechanic that will never get boring even after the 428th enemy. Of course the game will challenge you eventually with more powerful enemies that can't be put down with repeated hitting of one button.

After you are done with the main campaign, which takes about 10 hour to complete, there's literally a dozen thing to do in Arkham City. For one you can explore the story based side quests which are not only cleverly integrated in the game's main story but they are also highly addictive. Of course Riddler made his mark in this game too, so you can try to collect his collectibles of which there is more than 300. If you have done everything in Arkham City (takes around 20-30 hours) there is a game mode called Riddler's revenge which is essentially a task-based-clean-the-room mini-game. You are rewarded with medals based on your successes, but cleaning every room and hitting high score everywhere will take you at least that much as the main game. That adds up around 50+ hours of gameplay for 100% completion. Really the only thing worth of complain here is that when you do everything and I mean everything in Arkham City there isn't anything else to load your save game again. The streets are empty except for some thug groups always spawned in the same spots. Arkham City feels empty; a thing that can be noticed even in the heat of the first walkthrough.

Rating: 94/100; Replay Value: 4/5; To Beat: 8-10 hours (main campaign), 22-25 hours (campaign with collectibles); Played on: normal.

Definitely an improvement on the first game, changes nearly everything for the better. Fighting techniques, characters, storyline, the music and those boss fights...
It's close to perfection.

9.7/10

The game is very atmospheric and while the city isn't that big it scores by beeing very detailed and having many different and unique locations. The gameplay is phenomenal, the fighting is very fluent and responsive allowing you to have the best experience. After spending about 50 hours on this game I can definitely say that it is fantastic and an absolutely worthy purchase.