Finished this
+ The best story of the three games. I wasn't too excited about The Joker
when I had that spoiled for me, but that turned out fine. The story really picks up during the second half
+ Better boss fights, Deathstroke probably being my favorite. After dying a few times I realized that I had more freedom in that fight than I thought. I wound up using the batclaw a lot there.
+ I definitely prefer the art style of this game to the everyone-on-steroids characters from AA/AC. Most of the character designs are really cool. I especially like Killer Croc and the new Bat suit. Graphics and performance are great on PC
+/- Really enjoyed most of the indoor areas, especially during the second half of the game... but the city itself left a lot to be desired. This is my biggest disappointment with the game. A good portion of the map is copy/pasted from AC. Same city, fair enough... but there's more Gotham to explore. It didn't make any sense to me why the only people on the street were thugs and corrupt cops for Batman to beat up. And that bridge is no fun.
+/- Changes to the combat. Enemies are far more aggressive. I played on hard mode, but it was quite a bit more difficult than the other games until I got the shock gloves. I liked the challenge but some things just seemed inconsistent. I had a really hard time with blade takedowns, it seems like they only activated half of the time even if I dodged all of the attacks. The camera kind of sucks. I found myself adjusting it a lot, which I don't remember doing in AC/AA, and enemies would attack from off-screen frequently. Sometimes I would dash to the other end of a room in free flow mode only to punch air instead of the guy I was targeting, breaking my combo. I liked using the remote claw to snap people into propane tanks, but the other new gadgets didn't really add anything exciting to combat.
+/- The aggressiveness of the enemies seems to be balanced around the shock gloves, which suddenly makes everything much easier. You don't have to do anything different for shield/knife/venom guys, you just mash square and beat the shit out of everyone. On one hand it's fun to beat the shit out of everyone and it's nice to have an easier time keeping a combo, but it still feels cheap.
- Too many FMV cutscenes, I wish they were all real time. They look crappy compared to the game, and it's a bummer that they don't reflect the costume you're wearing.
- I did not give a shit about the enigma datapacks or the radio towers. I think AA is the only game that did the riddler trophies right. In that game they felt more analogous to picking up a missile expansion in Metroid or something. You'd go back to a previous area and use a new gadget to discover one. The map was also small enough that getting all of them felt like an achievable task. In AC there were just too many trophies everywhere. In AO, I only bothered picking up the obvious ones. I'm just tired of the collect-all-of-these-things-for-no-reason thing.
- Buggy and unpolished overall, from missing my targets/bad camera to black screens. Thankfully I didn't have any game breaking bugs though.
Overall I think WB Montreal did a great job making a new Arkham game. It might not do much new at all, for which it has received some really harsh criticism. If you're really fatigued from Arkham gameplay, this might feel tedious, but it didn't bother me. They took the same great mechanics and put them in a campaign with a better story and boss fights (for the most part) than the other games. I could nitpick this game for days though - lots of small blemishes on an otherwise great experience.