As a result, I’ve never properly played Arkham Asylum. So, my descent into its successor Arkham City was like a diner picking at a mystery pie. The gravity of the volte face Arkham City did for substandard comic-book-slash-video-game tie-ins has dissipated, so it’s uber-anticipated sequel needs to stand on its own two feet. But will it make me a believer in the Big Black Bat?

Arkham City is essentially The Dark Knight goes sandbox, taking its cues from graphic novels rather than comics – one could argue that without Christopher Nolan, Arkham City would cease to exist. The mood is of neo-noir, more Ridley Scott than Tim Burton; the expansive deep focus of the twisted high-rises in the Gotham-based penitentiary, with Batman close to the camera, provides real scale to proceedings. The perpetual nighttime is tinted with halogen street lights and neon signs signalling strongholds from Batman villainy folklore – Mr. Freeze, Victor Zsaz, Black Mask, Solomon Grundy, Killer Croc, The Penguin, The Riddler and The Joker. This time, Batman has been incarcerated with a bunch of them – and some uneasy alliances will have to be made if Batman is to once again save Gotham City.

Batman’s agility in automatically vaulting the crumbling thirties architecture is as much a testament to the map design of Arkham City as the character design. There’s a huge amount of fun to be had just from careening across rooftops, silently gliding in behind a sentry and deftly taking him out.

Once in close quarters tailing a suspect, the game becomes a toss up between fighting action and stealth takedowns. Batman’s stealth mode is brisk when compared to the likes of Hitman, yet it’s still a steady process where patience reaps true success. Detect mode aids your sneaky infiltration, and enables you to see through walls, and highlight vantage points to plan your assault. Work the room and pick off isolated henchmen silently from behind. Get spotted, and you’ll have to ascend back to the rafters in a puff of smoke and re-assess tactics. Just like the Splinter Cell games have shown, patience and perfection in execution proves a gratifying mix.

Puzzle-solving requires delving into an expansive utility belt and pulling out all manner of gadgets - explosive foams, remote control Baterangs, all of which go hand-in-hand with Detect Mode aids to isolate elements for solving each conundrum. Initially overwhelming, once you’ve got the hang of each tool, you’ll find yourself multi-purposing them. Additionally, The Riddler has left awards all around the world, which when collected unlock side missions and challenge games, to build your experience points and expand various facets of your inventory. There is also a series that only playing as Catwoman can unlock.

The transition between stealth and action isn’t quite as smooth as something like Deus Ex (allowing you to battle out of a failed stealth attacks). Echoing Rockstar’s The Warriors, fight sections allow strikes on opponents to be chained together with generous input windows, making them effortless but curiously detached. Even the critical strikes, administered with a crack of thunder and flurry of bats are rendered impotent by an oddly miscued slow-mo and awkward character graphics. Never has an exclaimed ‘Ker-unch’ been more sorely required. Key enemy waypoints are irritatingly vague, relying more on some variant of distance navigation, and tapping into radio signals or eavesdropping on incidental dialogue.

But in saving Batman from some flailing pseudo-ironic neo-Watersian nightmare, Arkham City hits all the touch-points of the Bat legacy that even a no-mark like me has been filtered. The high tech playboy billionaire-restricted gadgetry. The handy badass Batman, who can immobilise 20 henchmen without glancing to adjust his spandex  It’s comic book 101, but it’s exceptionally effective in establishing that Batman – or you - are equally capable and resourceful, and the scope for the player to modify their offense using his tools is deep enough to allow your own development of the legacy.

It’s not without its by no means ruinous flaws, but the scale of accomplishment and detail of the majority of Arkham City makes these irritating little moments more pronounced. You can truly step into the shoes of a well-realised, three-dimensional character with a surfeit of mix-and-match abilities that you can combine to place your own tint on Batman.

Based on other reviews, the game is no traitor to Batman fans. But its lustre for me is chipped by a series of tiny nagging flaws in its open-world iteration. How much of a Batman fan you are will depend on how much you’re willing to let them taint the experience for you. But there’s no denying Arkham City is a balanced and mature realisation of the more sombre elements of comic book heroics – one that makes it accessible to all.

Batman : Arkham City is available now on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC