Once again, game developers make one of my favorite comic book heroes look like nothing more than a pile of dookie.
Superman Returns: The Videogame is based on the really crappy 2006 movie of the same name... except for "The Videogame" part. The movie puts Brandon Routh, without a doupt the sissiest Superman since Dean Cain into the famous blue tights. The game loosely follows the plot of the movie and instead follows the comics instead, which is a godsend. The only thing that actually does resemble the movie in any way is the level of dookie.
You play as Superman, of course, that goes to his home planet of Krypton only to find that it has been destroyed. He is the last Kryptonian. Somehow though, his father, Jor-El, manages to guide him from the dead at the legendary "Fortress of Solitude". You fly around Metropolis and fight robots. THAT IS IT! Of course you do run the crappy speed courses from Superman 64.
Actually, the only good thing about this game is Metropolis. You can fly around to you hearts content until, of course, some robots show up. The city has a lot of life and color to it. It is very large, and is broken into 5 parts like the Hyper Section, the upper class, and the Waste Section, basically the ghetto.
The combat is without a doubt the worst thing in this game. You have about 4 basic button-mashing combos and 5 or 6 combo which involve using your powers. The enemies are very basic and the AI is attrocious. Your powers are actually kind of fun when you get the short but very powerful bursts of heat, wind, or ice. It's really too bad that they couldn't have added more powers, or enemies for that matter. There are Metallo's bots and that is about it.
The sound is also quite terrible despite having all the cast members including Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey. The music is a looping, annoying song. The sounds of combat are even worse as everything sounds the same. The powers do have some variety. The heat sounds like an oven being turned on, the wind sounds like a bad storm, and the ice sounds like someone opening a freezer.
Despite having been a major comic book hero for going on 70+ years, game developers cannot get it right. Every single Superman game that has came out has been an atrocious, hideous, laughable, gag gift at best. This game actually made me hate Superman. Steer far, far, FAR away from this piece of crap and go watch "Smallville".