Don't bring your brain to this fight.
Batman: Arkham Asylum is a level-by-level game where Batman, surprise surprise, chases the Joker.
You'll immediately fall in love with the fight mechanics of this game. You can take on multiple foes at once and its extremely seamless. If you hated Assassins Creed's awkward system of fighting one foe at a time, while the rest of the foe's respectfully surrounded you but never attacked, then you'll appreciate this game's fight system even more.
You'll love Batman. Hes a badass and you'll love playing as him. You'll actually feel powerful and unbeatable while playing as him and its a nice change since most titles make you feel weak as the main character. (Side discussion.. Lets be real, you felt nervous for Dom's life in Gears of War, you felt scared for Chris and Shriva in Resident Evil 5, and you always hid behind cover as one of the many characters in the Call of Duty titles. Not in this game. Batman dominates and you will constantly throw yourself in front of danger so you can feel it)
THere is a new view mode that is basically x-ray vision and helps you find secrets and see enemies around corners, etc. It's cool but defeats the entire purpose of playing the game. It's almost like cheating and the game obviously doesn't look as good while using it. So don't use it, right? Wrong, you'll always be tempted to.
On the other hand the game is extremely scripted and linear. There is no thought process needed here. Not only is it linear but any time there is anything special to do, like leap to a platform or take a detour, the game flat-out tells you to. The gamer has no freedom at all in this game and should take this into consideration before buying since there are dozens of releases every year that follow the same format.
Verdict: 6.5 - An amazing fight system and a baddass Batman character help save an otherwise repetitive, hand-holding, path-finding bore of a game.