Arkham City literally ended my game by deleting my save file. I had beaten the game, thankfully, but was working on the Riddler challenges. The worst Origins did to me was that thing where 1 building wasn't tangible unless you changed a value in an ini file.
I get the complaint that it's iterative, but like you admit, it has to be designed for newcomers. The fact that it doesn't measure up to one of the best games ever that came out over 6 years later is kind of expected and I'm not sure where you're going there.
The introductory part of the game isn't the bulk of the game and once it opens up those complaints are, I think, moot.
Zelda is there as a non-sequitur, not really meant for a comparison. It's basically for future reference on how I'd like to see this issue tackled in the future.
The core complaint about the introductory part that I didn't really get to in my cheeky, dumb bulletpoint spread is that it sets the stage for a rote experience that the game never really lifts you out of. It rarely goes anywhere at all.
As an origin story, particularly one of the most well-known fictional heroes of the 20th century (if not THE? (who else: Superman (whose origin story is pretty fucking boring, tbh), Spider-Man (same problem), OJ Simpson), the path can't be strayed from too much without a mob. But the story lives in those stray paths, and I feel the game failed to ever go there.
It starts feeling kinda mechanically, and ends feeling kinda mechanical. We got where we were going.
There are far worse games out there. Far worse games that get pumped. And I'll cop to really, really enjoying Asylum and feeling like the sequels never hit that. And I'll cop to liking that LOTR game that fails on almost all of these same levels.
I guess my point is that, much like the band Radiohead, I was left feeling like it was just...
unnecessary.