I think the main theme that stretches through the insomniac spider-man trilogy is insecurity. Not insecurity in the sense that the characters go through it as a thematic throughline but the writing itself.

There's this bizarre sense of fear throughout the three games. A fear of trying to do anything but the expected, of trying to live up to the living legacy of the brand, the fans' expectations and Playstation Prestige Videogames. I felt it as i went through my ninth puzzle room where Miles spells out the answer after 3 minutes of looking around,. In the bizarre way the characters would talk to themselves about what to do next. In the truly, incredibly dire way characters would just Say their feelings with no pathos and how truly awful those segments were written and acted (the entire fight between peter and MJ was fucking cringe-inducing.)

Nothing about spider-man 2 feels human. The smear of corporate-approved brand synergy is the only thing that ties the game together. There's no friction in its writing, no pull in its combat, no hook in its traversal; you spend the whole game swinging and flying and doing Content and you're done with it after 25 hours of nothing except seeing insomniac's tech team show off their shit with the SSD, admittedly an actually cool part that's mildly impressive during the Sandman fight and is never cool again.

If this is the future of the superhero game genre then i'd rather go back to 2007