Played this one both out of curiosity and as a big fan of the original Arkham games curious about what Rocksteady did with the world and setting. I'm reviewing this having finished the game but not having engaged with the endgame.
The game has glimmers of goodness that shine through the goop of the looter shooter system it's designed around. Let's start with the good. I actually really enjoyed the characters and the humour. I think there is some issue with comedic timing where the voice lines are spaced just a little too clear of each other, but overall each character has a unique charm. The story itself is good as a premise, with the idea of taking beloved characters in the Justice League and making you kill them. I feel like it never really gets explored and that the pacing is off somehow though, since it feels like it takes forever to kill anyone and then you're killing them all at once. I feel like stretching out the campaign a bit to having the squad work up to each member of the League would be cool, but what's here is serviceable. I do really like all the characters in the home base, and the chaos of ARGUS working with supervillains. For what it's worth, I do also find the base combat fun. I think it's the most fun when the game has you putting out a million fires in terms of objectives, while cutting through the enemy troopers to get there. The power fantasy but overwhelming odds comes together really well when that happens, but really that's only a fraction of the missions. Hands down the best part of the game was the "Batman Experience" in the beginning of the game wherein Batman uses all his moves from the Arkham games against you. This was a really great subversion that built off of your familiarity with the character, and I think that familiarity with the other Rocksteady versions of the League is sorely missing. Batman does really shine though. While the plot can be a bit lacking, I do think the audio logs do really well to set up Braniac and how the League lost to him. There aren't even that many logs to listen to and they're easy to collect, so I do think this is a common criticism that doesn't have as much merit as others. I can't deny that seeing it rather than hearing it, even for just a scene, would have gone a longer way.
The type of gameplay that sucks is missions where you can only kill enemies in a certain way, like grenades or critical hits, because it feels like it's not necessarily difficult but just tedious. This might be a little more fun if you engage with the weapon system for each mission, but the looter shooter equipment stuff just does not appeal to me at all. Keeping track of a million little stats with incentives to craft even more weapons is just life draining as opposed to something Ratchet & Clank-esque where each each weapon fills a well defined niche. Instead I just found myself using what worked until it didn't, and then picking the next gun without negative effects and decent damage output. And even then, the guns you get near the beginning of the game will last you throughout the game. All of this would be a small deal if it wasn't for the fact that every side quest incentivises you with these rewards. I ended up doing all the support missions just to get the achievements, but it did make me question doing them as they repeated the same gimmicks.
The collectables are also just lame. Riddler trophies make a return, but they are all in obvious spots that you just need to pass to have them highlighted on the radar. Gone are the challenges or weird nooks from the Arkham games, instead making it pretty banal. I think Rocksteady knew this since there are a fraction of them here compared to the Arkham games. The Riddler challenges themselves are movement challenges and the only way to get free cosmetics. These were actually not so bad as they did test your knowledge of the movement mechanics on each character, but they were never an edge of your seat challenge. The cosmetic rewards themselves really sucked. The colour palettes for the default skins were nice, but the only actual cosmetic changes you get are for the "prison uniform" skins which pale in comparison to anything else. I'm guessing this is a purposeful way to get players to buy the cooler cosmetics.
All the League bossfights were also underwhelming. It may have been the difficulty I was on, but they all felt pretty simple and unchallenging. They usually revolved around one mechanic to make the enemy vulnerable, and then just shooting the shit out of them. The entire game has a million mechanics such as the Ivy missions with the affliction spreading plants, and the Gizmo vehicle setpieces. These feel really weirdly separated from the rest of the game. It does come together in the Braniac fight where you use everything against him simultaneously, which you'll need to since he is an upgraded version of the Flash fight with a ton of goons to fight and heal him. These mechanics actually all come together really well in this fight, but it's a shame that 20 hours of stilted side missions really only leads to one moment of true synergy.
Overall, honestly, this game is fine. It will not succeed as a looter shooter but it's perfectly serviceable to kill 20 hours if you get it on sale sometime. The gameplay and plot would both shine a lot more if they weren't in service to the live service seasonal content model since there isn't any finality to the end of the game, and the loot system is over-designed and too tedious to engage with.
The game has glimmers of goodness that shine through the goop of the looter shooter system it's designed around. Let's start with the good. I actually really enjoyed the characters and the humour. I think there is some issue with comedic timing where the voice lines are spaced just a little too clear of each other, but overall each character has a unique charm. The story itself is good as a premise, with the idea of taking beloved characters in the Justice League and making you kill them. I feel like it never really gets explored and that the pacing is off somehow though, since it feels like it takes forever to kill anyone and then you're killing them all at once. I feel like stretching out the campaign a bit to having the squad work up to each member of the League would be cool, but what's here is serviceable. I do really like all the characters in the home base, and the chaos of ARGUS working with supervillains. For what it's worth, I do also find the base combat fun. I think it's the most fun when the game has you putting out a million fires in terms of objectives, while cutting through the enemy troopers to get there. The power fantasy but overwhelming odds comes together really well when that happens, but really that's only a fraction of the missions. Hands down the best part of the game was the "Batman Experience" in the beginning of the game wherein Batman uses all his moves from the Arkham games against you. This was a really great subversion that built off of your familiarity with the character, and I think that familiarity with the other Rocksteady versions of the League is sorely missing. Batman does really shine though. While the plot can be a bit lacking, I do think the audio logs do really well to set up Braniac and how the League lost to him. There aren't even that many logs to listen to and they're easy to collect, so I do think this is a common criticism that doesn't have as much merit as others. I can't deny that seeing it rather than hearing it, even for just a scene, would have gone a longer way.
The type of gameplay that sucks is missions where you can only kill enemies in a certain way, like grenades or critical hits, because it feels like it's not necessarily difficult but just tedious. This might be a little more fun if you engage with the weapon system for each mission, but the looter shooter equipment stuff just does not appeal to me at all. Keeping track of a million little stats with incentives to craft even more weapons is just life draining as opposed to something Ratchet & Clank-esque where each each weapon fills a well defined niche. Instead I just found myself using what worked until it didn't, and then picking the next gun without negative effects and decent damage output. And even then, the guns you get near the beginning of the game will last you throughout the game. All of this would be a small deal if it wasn't for the fact that every side quest incentivises you with these rewards. I ended up doing all the support missions just to get the achievements, but it did make me question doing them as they repeated the same gimmicks.
The collectables are also just lame. Riddler trophies make a return, but they are all in obvious spots that you just need to pass to have them highlighted on the radar. Gone are the challenges or weird nooks from the Arkham games, instead making it pretty banal. I think Rocksteady knew this since there are a fraction of them here compared to the Arkham games. The Riddler challenges themselves are movement challenges and the only way to get free cosmetics. These were actually not so bad as they did test your knowledge of the movement mechanics on each character, but they were never an edge of your seat challenge. The cosmetic rewards themselves really sucked. The colour palettes for the default skins were nice, but the only actual cosmetic changes you get are for the "prison uniform" skins which pale in comparison to anything else. I'm guessing this is a purposeful way to get players to buy the cooler cosmetics.
All the League bossfights were also underwhelming. It may have been the difficulty I was on, but they all felt pretty simple and unchallenging. They usually revolved around one mechanic to make the enemy vulnerable, and then just shooting the shit out of them. The entire game has a million mechanics such as the Ivy missions with the affliction spreading plants, and the Gizmo vehicle setpieces. These feel really weirdly separated from the rest of the game. It does come together in the Braniac fight where you use everything against him simultaneously, which you'll need to since he is an upgraded version of the Flash fight with a ton of goons to fight and heal him. These mechanics actually all come together really well in this fight, but it's a shame that 20 hours of stilted side missions really only leads to one moment of true synergy.
Overall, honestly, this game is fine. It will not succeed as a looter shooter but it's perfectly serviceable to kill 20 hours if you get it on sale sometime. The gameplay and plot would both shine a lot more if they weren't in service to the live service seasonal content model since there isn't any finality to the end of the game, and the loot system is over-designed and too tedious to engage with.