Batman: Arkham Origins

That's a lot of bad news to take in, and it may lead you to think that Batman: Arkham Origins isn't quite excellent. It's not, and while it is partially a victim of the standard set by the series before, it never seems to justify its decisions. This younger Batman is paradoxically stuck in his future ways, his game re-calibrated into a lopsided, combat-heavy flashback. And as the confused time travelers that we are in this chronology, we can express disappointment when we realize his best days are yet to come - like they did already.

Batman: Arkham Origins presents a version of the popular superhero who is still learning and doesn't seem to totally understand why he does what he does. I just wish the game didn't share those vulnerabilities. Where Arkham Asylum and Arkham City surprised me with their ambition, Origins is comfortable taking the best from what has come before without contributing much of its own or even fully understanding what worked about those systems. It's built on a solid foundation but it doesn't take the world's greatest detective to see that something significant is missing.