Fun game, good sequel. All the improvements are there. Ignore the mouthbreathing review bombers whining about no online functionality. This is GOG, stuff that requires DRM isn't included for obvious reasons and the online features do NOT affect core gameplay or story or functionality whatsoever.
Yet to grab this on GOG but have it on Steam and have played it quite a few times. It's pretty much a knock-off of Diablo but it still manages to be a very enjoyable, well-built ARPG that plays a lot better than most in the genre. So whether you want to take another swing at a Diablo-esque title or you've never dipped your toes into ARPGs this is a title worth grabbing.
Stick to the much cheaper Special Edition of Skyrim. The extra content included here is just Bethesda's cash grab attempts at providing modder content but all of it falls far short of the actual high quality you've come to expect from the dedicated modding community.
Arkham City was almost a perfect sequel. Almost. The pros of the game are pretty extensively covered by most reviews. We got far more fluid combat, a bigger world to explore, more characters and villians to encounter, some fun alternate outfits but it falls short in some ways which most reviews skim over. Let's give those some more detail; - The third act of the story just falls apart & becomes amateur writing hour with the plot only progressing due to the most ridiculous & illogical of actions or rather lack of actions by key characters. There's also a couple of plotholes that start to creep in & grow. - The amount of side-missions & things to do seem great at first but after a few hours of gameplay they begin to actually break the immersion more often than they make the city/game world feel more full/alive as intended by becoming more of an inconvenient house cleaning chore. - Cheap gameplay designs intended to nerf poorly thought out gadgets like the Disruptor that break immersion by introducing behaviour to them without any logical explanation or reason other than to nerf it. - Some poorly designed areas where solid items don't count as cover so NPCS can see you through them & shoot you. Some environmental items have odd invisible walls around them leading to awkard moments in certain combat scenarios when trying to evade or escape. - Catwoman feels like an afterthought with her campaign awkwardly crammed in between at a few intervals leaving you playing an amazing superhero one second to playing an annoyingly slow, clumsy character the next purely because the vast majority of the game's environment were clearly never designed for her. With all that said, it's an amazing sequel to expand on the brilliance that was Arkham Asylum & definitely worth your money!
Both the first and second titles are fun little flawed gems if you temper your standards. Don't be expecting a thrilling plot and edge of your seat suspense. Instead, cheesy, at times melodramatic little romps. Gameplay is solid but does show its age, some puzzles aren't as logical as they should be & there can be some pixel hunting but it is what it is and with a bit of tinkering you can figure out anything that doesn't appear to make sense so don't let the detractors deter you in those regards. Neither game takes too long to complete, YMMV but expect a couple of hours or more from each so maybe wait for a sale if that seems a bit short for your liking. I can't properly review the third title because I can't get it to run in any playable state but don't be too bothered if you have the same issue, it really should've been bundled with 4 & 5 being that it's piggy-backing on the existence of the first two and is completely unrelated.
