While mechanically, the game is superior to Arkham Asylum in every way, I still prefer Arkham Asylum, but that's mostly down to personal preference. I think the best innovations the game offers are the changes to gliding and world traversal, as well as much better boss fights this time around. But the game doesn’t quite have the same strong writing and atmosphere as before. It’s decent enough, it works, however the horror elements are pretty much all gone and the story more or less boils down to “go to this section of the city, beat up this bad guy, rinse and repeat”. Still, a fantastic title, and continues the story of Asylum quite well.

Arkham City is one of video game's great sequels, building on everything that Arkham Asylum did well and crafting the best Batman game really anybody could ask for. The premise of cordoning off a portion of Gotham for the villains to run wild in is pretty silly, but it offers so much more potential for exploration that lacked in the more contained Arkham Asylum.

Like the first game, the traversal, gadgets, exploration, and combat are all pretty fantastic. While I've definitely grown tired of the punch-counter-punch system after so many video games copied it, there's no denying how well Rocksteady implemented it and why it became such a staple in action games.

What struck me the hardest with Arkham City was the storytelling. We get the whole rogue's gallery like the first game, and the way the villains weave in and out is pretty well-executed. But the main antagonist is of course the Joker and Mark Hamill really gives his all in making this tale compelling. What they do with the famous Clown is really impactful and interesting, and the story's resolution left me absolutely floored.

Arkham City is a perfect sequel and there's nothing I'd change about it. Probably the best superhero game ever made.

An amazing sequel to an amazing game!

Batman: Arkham Asylum was a fantastic Batman game with fun gameplay, legendary voice actors and a lore heavy environment set deep in the Batman DC universe and the sequel was just as fantastic if not better!

Gameplay: Batman: Arkham City is a 3rd person, open world, Beat ‘em up, Action-Adventure Semi-RPG game taking place in a closed off section of Gotham City now called Arkham City. The combat works in different ways with a combo based, beat ’em up fighting style where you can strike combos and keep them going from enemy to enemy to get a higher rank and XP to unlock things, doing side missions and content also gives XP you use in a skill tree all of which see some improvements since the first game. Another big mechanic is stealth which has only gotten better and more fun to use this time around. Many gadgets and mechanics return like the Xray (Assassins Creed style Eagle Vision) mode that allows you to see enemies’ weapons and important things in the environment, but we also see the addition of some new gear like the freeze grenades or the improved grappling system. Batman unlocks a wide variety of satisfying gadgets to help him find collectibles and hidden areas along with fighting enemies and progress the story. Aside from the main story there are a bunch of side missions and quests to do with solving enemies’ storylines, saving people, doing challenges or doing Riddler trophies… which this time around they are a lot more intimidating and annoying to find with some having weird puzzles to solve and some being just flat out frustrating to get to. Riddler still has riddles to solve just like the first game, but they aren’t super difficult to figure out. I have done the Riddler challenges in all of these games and I can’t say why but I think I hated them the most in this game, they were so tedious and annoying. There are also some cool DLC expansions for this game like the Cat Woman side story that lets you play as Cat Woman and explains what she is doing while most of this game is going on. They also have a Harley Quinn storyline where you play as the 3rd Robin Tim Drake as he looks for Batman sometime after the events of the game. The Cat Woman one is cool and lets you freely switch between Batman and Cat Woman but the Harley one felt a bit short to me and more or less pointless, but it was still fun to play for sure.

Graphics, Voice Acting& Music: The graphics look great, and all of the environments are interesting and fun to explore and take in. There are A LOT of easter eggs and fun lore hidden everywhere making exploration very fun and satisfying. The voice cast from Arkham Asylum and the Batman Animated series returns and just like the first game are incredible with great performances from Kevin Conroy’s Batman and Mark Hamill’s Joker, this has to be one of my favorite comic book video game franchises I have ever played next to the Spiderman games. The music and environmental OST are pretty well done as well making the ambiance of each area and the Dark Knight come to life.

Story/ Minor Spoilers: The story goes much harder in this game than the first one where we see Batman at his most vulnerable with a conspiracy of different foes coming together to once again take down Batman. A lot of new villains we didn’t see in Asylum make an appearance here and add a new dynamic to the story that takes the player on a much more epic journey than the first game did. I don’t want to spoil much about the story, so I won’t say much because A LOT happens in this game that has huge impacts on the Arkham storyline. All I can say is that if you love DC, Batman, Comics or Beat em’ Up games you’ll probably love this one.

Not many Negatives I can say about this game. 9.5/10

This game made me feel like I was an Italian gay guy playing superhero games.

Batman Arkham City is the perfect way to translate the mythos of the dark crusader on any media: starting from an interesting story going through all the major names in Batman's rogue gallery, written by expert writer Paul Dini who not only wrote the story for the previous installment, Batman Arkham Asylum, but also wrote the best episodes of Batman The Animated Series, which as I said in my Asylum review I loved. All the side quests are just as brilliant, even repetitive ones, you know who I'm talking about...

Gameplay has seen a huge improvement over the previous game, with better free flow, no more batman moaning, and with a new assortment of combo and gadgets that add to both the free roam and combat experiences. Stealth is also greatly improved with more variety of enemies you can encounter. Overall this experience was the best action I could find when I played this game as a kid... And 12 years later, it surprisingly holds up to my standards, being rarely surpassed in how fluid punching criminals is.

On PC the optimization is decently good, prepare for some crashes regardless of your hardware. Though the game still looks beautiful today, it'll be worth it. Arkham City compliments the game with a neo noir setting, full of neon signs and a gritty atmosphere.

I recommend playing it at least once in your life. I think it's not only a perfect game, but a very accessible one.

O melhor jogo que já joguei na minha vida, e o primeiro que zerei no meu Xbox 360. Não há comentários sobre esse jogo, apenas que ele pegou tudo que Batman Arkham Asylum fez, melhorou e traz a melhor história da saga e uma das melhores do universo Batman. Com um Coringa no seu auge de carisma e com uma grandeza absurda, se tratando de uma fodendo prisão a céu aberto que é maior que muita cidade de interior. Suas missões secundárias apesar de simples, trazem mais personagens tão bacanas do Batman que ficaram de fora da história principal. Eu já zerei esse jogo umas 16 vezes e só de comentar sobre ele quero zerar de novo. Obrigado Rocksteady.

Batman hits HARD.

Perfect combat, perfect atmosphere, perfect story and an amazing Joker.

One of the greatest Superhero games of all time, not something you want to miss out on.