First of all though, the hype is definitely accurate about the well praised combat system, which is the best I can personally remember handling, the general idea of the combat in the Arkham games is "Engage an entire prison block's worth of poor muscular criminals in a fistfight.", and it works very well, you punch somebody a few times, they get hurt and fall down, but not out, then another knucklehead approaches you and you repeat the process until they all stop moving. I understand I just said 'repeat' in a sentence about the combat, but really there's more to it than that, there are a ton of combos within memory so it never feels like you're endlessly smashing them with webs like in Spidey: Shatty Dims, and plus there's the fact that you can target enemies and the combos will take you right to them, and if you can't be arsed hitting them with your limbs there's the option to use gadgets (Batarangs and Grappling Hook in 'Asylum', Batarang, Grappling Hook, QuickBomb, Quick Electrode shot and a bloody ice Grenade.) which can knock out a load of knuckleheads before they get near you.
Also good in the games in the stealth sections, the best way to describe them would be by asking you to remember the scene in Batman Begins where Batman gradually picks off the gun wielding thugs from the darkness by scaring them a whole bunch. In Arkham Asylum and City, this is done through hiding on the top of curiously plentiful wall mounted Gargoyle statues and slowly taking them out silently without the other knowing you're there, because if they do they'll use their bullets to make Batman kick his addiction to breathing..
..Or I assume that was the intention, because in Arkham City, all I ever seemed to do in the stealth sections was to challenge them to a fistfight while they shot me from afar and my armour upgrades and smoke bombs protected me from being shot, yes the sheer amount of upgrades and gadgets, while quite fun in the combat sections, kind of break the stealth over its knee due to the fact that there was little need to be stealthy when I could take a large amount of bullets and disable at least three gun wielding thugs at a time anyway using various methods of stunning, I generally take this option because the stealth, while fun, is time consuming and not necessary unless the enemies can shoot you from very far away.
Back to the good though, what I like about both games is that the ArkhamVerse's interpretation of the various Batman characters are spot on, though in the first game it was more in the style of Batman: The Animated Series characters, which made since because the plot of both games was written by the showrunners of Batman: TAS. Though having just said I liked of aspect of the writing, I was somewhat less than fond of the actual story of both (Stop reading now if you don't want spoilers.), first and foremost being that the games are written by two guys who write for a TV show very well, which doesn't necessarily mean that they can write for a wholly other medium such as video games just as well.
For example, the main focus of the gameplay is exploration, stealth and combat, and while that might be fun for fighting several knuckleheads at once, it's hard to make conflict with the singular villains fall into this category, like the fact that Batman far far outclasses The Joker, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, the Penguin and other powerless villains in terms of fighting ability, and the superpowered characters like Killer Croc, Bane, Clayface, Solomon Grundy, Ra's Al Ghul and Titan Joker who could put up a fight don't feel that powerful. The only boss fights in the games who actually feeels as threatening as fighting their comic counterparts are Mister Freeze who feels as clever and as powerful as he is in the comics, and Scarecrow and the Mad Hatter, who pit you against your own delusions rather than fight you directly. Wheras Bane, who figures out Batman's identity and cripples him though a combination of intelligence and power, does not come across as such in his fights where you trick him into running into a wall a few times.
Also, I have a love/hate relationship with the environments too, in Asylum, I hated navigating the overworld because it felt like a less distinctive version of Hyrule Field and I hated navigating the buildings because every room looks the exact same and made me lose about two weeks of playtime trying to find a room that I had access to but I forgot the route to, and made me feel like like Batman and more like Link if Link was stuck in the Water Temple the entire game. This is why I like the overworld in Arkham City because not only do you feel like Batman traversing the rooftops and drop kicking criminals that're beating up innocents, but the way you travel is both quick and very Batman, specific buildings are often hard to find but they're usually on the map anyway and my problem with the level design is far lesser.
The game has a ton of side things to do for all the psychopath level OCD sufferers like collecting Riddler Trophies and solving riddles, as well as (In City.) side missions where you fight other villains or help people alternately, some of the side missions are very fussy about when and where you're allowed to continue them (Gameplay tip: When the game tells you "Look for more leads.", what it actually means is "Play the main story and we might think about unlocking the rest of this mission.".), but that's nothing that'll put me off the game.
From all my criticism it might be easy to assume I don't like these games, but that's not the case, I like the combat, the stealth, City's travel system and overworld, and the characters, which is more than enough to subsist me. The games are definitely not perfect, but I wouldn't claim to challenge the notion that they're deserving of praise.
