A vast improvement over the Spiderman sandbox games of the past. Though it also had some set backs.
When I heard that this game was going to be sandbox like Spiderman 2 I was disappointed yet intrigued. I didn't like the other sandbox games because there just wasn't much for spidey to do so it got old (unlike GTA). Yet I was intrigued because this was the fourth sandbox spidey game so I figured they may have figured out how to do it right....and they did.
Most everything from the swinging to hopping across cars to running up a building was improved drastically to make it much easier. The one thing (an important thing) that kind of failed was the control. Many times it's hard to control Spiderman. When you're swinging through the city it's not a problem but when you have somewhere you actually want to get to such as a specific building top it can be hard to get him there. Spidey loves to move at very fast speeds (which can be fun) so when you just simply trying to land in a spot it can be frustrating. Also, just jumping up from to another ledge 6ft up is sometimes difficult. I wish they put more time into making it easier to control his movements.
One thing i think makes it difficult is when I'm turning and then stop, the camera continues on just a little bit but that little bit causes my precision to be off and makes it very frustrating. Even with just running and looking around, it's annoying. I use a 360 controller for this game so I don't exactly know how a mouse and keyboard would be (though I image it would be the same).
The biggest thing that makes the sandbox game work is that it's not a complete sandbox game. It's a mix of sandbox and a level designed game. And many times you're indoors so the sandbox doesn't matter. But they way they mix the two was very nice and made it so the sandbox mode didn't get old.
The graphics won't make you go "wow" but they're alright.
The combat is ok. Shattered Dimensions was much better. It gets very annoying when you're in combat and when your aiming thing moves over a flashing object or a vent it says, "Press RB to interact" (or another key if you're using the keyboard)...after the 1000th time I know that if I press RB when over a flashing object I can interact with it. I don't need it to act like a tutorial the whole game. The moves are nice but they get old. Superhero games need to take time and create more moves. Many times it just felt like I was button mashing. That's the big reason I loved Arkham Asylum, during combat I felt like I was fighting and knew what I was doing. This game was half knowing what I was doing and half button mashing.
Overall because of the story and the improvements over the past sandbox games I thought it was a 7/10...though my personal enjoyment was a 6/10. I'd much prefer to play Shattered Dimensions which I thought was a very solid 10/10.