There are no great superhero games.

Even those that have stood up to some scrutiny compromise their source, cramming powers and villains into well-worn gaming templates. It’s the result of a rushed licence, a studio ordered to have a game ready to ship alongside the latest summer movie blockbuster. Or it can be the result of a simple act of opportunism, reskinning a standard genre piece in the knowledge that a captive audience will hand over the cash so long as it looks cool.

Batman: Arkham Asylum may yet turn out to be a bad game, but if it does it’ll be for neither of those reasons. And there’s a more than good chance it’ll be an excellent one, because from concept to tone this is a seriously positive case for the genre. It begins as the Batmobile, complete with a glorious 1950s grille, roars through Gotham, past emergency vehicles heading the other way.

It’s dark, it’s raining, and the Joker is trussed up in the passenger seat. Arriving at Arkham in order to take him back into custody, Batman slowly walks down to the basement, the Joker alongside and bound to a gurney. Doctors, police and the occasional inmate stand on the periphery of this weird forward march. Lifts clank and grudgingly creak downwards, lights fritz on and off, and the security guards are jumpy. The lights go down. ‘Here it is’, you think, ‘the Joker’s going to escape’. The lights go back on, and Batman has the Joker gripped around the throat. “You’re not going anywhere,” he growls. “What, you don’t trust me?” splutters the Joker in response. This moment is when you begin to suspect there’s a little more to Arkham Asylum than the usual licence-with-awesome-graphics.

It’s got atmosphere, sure, but it’s also got attitude. That helps visually because, although its prettiness screams Unreal Engine 3, the comically exaggerated features and torsos give a comic-book overtone to otherwise moody hyper-realism. It’s a balancing act that the game as a whole is keen on – as the Batmobile whooshes past the sign to Arkham in the opening, a small notice underneath warns that ‘hitchhikers may be inmates’.

Wandering through the levels, there are a few rats lying in a duct (Ratcatcher), an umbrella in a glass case (Penguin), some henchmen talk fearfully about what Zsasz might be up to, and a few ‘Vote Dent’ posters hang on the walls. This may not be the high-camp Batman, but there’s a self-referentiality that takes it beyond being mere grim’n’gritty fare.

Instead, the unflinching inspiration for Rocksteady’s envisaging of Batman is the word ‘superhero’. The game doesn’t feel the need to avoid the fact that he’s a hardcase. Taking out street thugs should be embarrassingly easy for the caped crusader, and it is. In one section two henchmen chat while guarding a staircase, with Batman perched above them.