

It sets a new precedent: Arkham City "should land a motivation-packed 'POW!' on the jaw of every developer" working on superhero video games, says Wook Kim at TIME. The game's 96 out of 100 critics' score on Metacritic makes it the top-rated of the year so far. Enter the Dark Knight to clean up the mess.

The former warden of the corrupt asylum becomes mayor of Gotham City and erects walls around its slums, converting them into a massive open-air prison named Arkham City. The role-playing game picks up one year after Arkham Asylum. Now its sequel, Batman: Arkham City, has arrived, and critics say it's even better. When it debuted in 2009, Batman: Arkham Asylum was praised as a " best-in-class game," raising the bar for superhero video games.
