So I just finished Arkham Origins.

So I thought I'd give my thoughts on it and hear from the people who loved it, the people who hated it, and everyone who thought it was "meh," pretty awesome and everywhere in between.

First, it had it's moments. The story was much more engaging than that of Arkham City, but it still forced a sense of urgency on you- it never felt like I had the time to stop off and check up on(or search out) the other villains on display.

Less impressive to me, though, was the big Joker reveal. I felt disappointed that it wasn't Black Mask trying to waste Batman after all, but rather the Joker up to his old tricks again, but for the first time. But then I got to thinking about the nature of the story it was telling- it wasn't the origin of Batman, and it wasn't even reallyabout his transition into stone cold fact. It was really about the origin of the specific enmities between Batman and his most famous foes. Specifically the forging of the bond between Batman and the Joker.

It missed a step or two in the telling, like why Batman saved the Joker when he was perfectly fine letting Electrocutioner fall some 40-odd floors to his death(and I seem to remember seeing a number of other dead baddies through the course of the campaign). Then there's the question of why 8 assassins were sent after Batman, but you only contront 5 of them througout the campaign and one of those wasn't even a proper boss fight.

As to the gameplay, it's a mixed bag, but the balance is shifted firmly away from awesome and toward boring-slash-infuriating. They claimed it starred a younger, less refined Batman, and while some of that comes through in the reworked combat animations, I think that claim may have at least partly been based on their realizing that something about their execution of the combat was just a little off. Batman prioritizes badguys less accurately- when I try to takedown an armored thug, he make use the move on a shield thug in between us and such.

On the whole, I still think it should rest comfortably at a 7.

What about the rest of you?