The sequel to a great game

I was never a Batman fan. But I like to call myself a gamer. So when the first Arkham came about - i wasn't expecting anything special from the game. To my surprise the game was very good. It had stealth, action, atmosphere, well directed linear story, interesting villains. In other words - I enjoyed it a lot.

Of course with the announcement of Arkham City, my expectations were high. So after playing the game here are my thoughts.

The story starts strong - from the first minutes of the game we are introduced to Bruce Wayne. He gets dragged to Arkham City by the will of Hugo Strange. After some time the story losses focus with the introduction of open world elements.

The open world is not as big as GTA's but that is not a bad thing - it's a more densely packed world. It's full of cameos of other villains along with the main story ones. The thing is every villain - has a short story act, which doesn't pull you in enough.

Since this is an open world - the map is littered with thugs, events, and secrets. Now here is my gripe - if in the first Arkham you were finding Riddler question marks and trophies in unusual places, or by using the detective mode. In this one those are scattered everywhere - which removes the pleasure of unexpectedly finding them while exploring the world.

The world feels alive, with conversation over the radio between thugs, chopper pilots, and victims.

Detective mode was improved, and like in the first game it was a blast to use. Especially following a traill, finding the direction a bullet was shot from, scanning for clues etc.

The fighting system was improved upon - with new moves and finishers, and the upgrade system functions a lot better. The fighting system is more robust now, and beating the hell out of thugs never gets old.

The gadgets department is an overkill in my opinion. There were a lot of them and although I can understand that it is a nice bonus for Batman fans, some of them I have only used 1 or 2 times when required by the main story.

This game has improved a lot of things from the first game but lost 3 aspects - focused story (due to open world), metroidvania aspect (I wasn't presented with unreachable places for which I would require a new gadget to unlock), and atmosphere.

Batman Arkham City is a good game but I had more expectations after the first Arkham, and was a little disappointed by the game.
It's not bad by all means - but I expected it to be so much more.