I heard lots of good things about these two games over the years, alongside seemingly never-ending comments about this or that game using “Arkham-style combat”.
So perhaps my expectations going in were too high: Neither game is particularly impressive and the much vaunted combat is just your standard beat ’em up fair. Streets of Rage was released over a decade earlier for fuck’s sake.
I will however grant that they both earn top marks for visual quality and implementing that age-old combat system flawlessly… but that’s not really enough to counteract the somewhat clunky non-combat movement and the complete and utter absence of any loot/pick-ups. Batman basically has everything he needs right at the beginning and doesn’t use conventional weapons so you’re just moving from point to point through static environments beating/creeping up on generic mooks.
If you’re a beat ’em up fan this obviously won’t be an issue, but personally I need more than button-mashing for button-mashing’s sake to keep me invested in a game.