This Teen-rated fighting game is expected to push the limits of that rating. MK fans used to more graphic fatalities might find solace in the fact that these DC superheroes can die. The ESRB-approved death animation for The Flash had the speedster fall to the ground, charred and dead, after Scorpion finished him.

The roster of playable characters at E3 also included Superman, Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Sonya. Other confirmed fighters like Catwoman, Sheng Tsung, Captain Marvel, and Liu Kang were not available on this demo—but there’s always next week’s Comic-Con. It was nice to see MK-inspired special moves applied to DC Comic characters like Batman (who can teleport via a smoke pellet) and The Flash (who can dash from one side of the screen to the other). For its next generation debut—and the first pairing of this fighting stalwart with another license—Midway’s classic brawler has a nice mixture of gameplay.

Midway’s arcade-style gameplay was also on display in its new TNA Impact! brawler. Midway made the classic arcade game, Wrestlemania, and this new take on professional wrestling has an old school feel. The game has depth with eleven types of matches, including free-for-all, tagteam and weapons matches, and allows up to four players to compete at one time. Online, the title supports mano-a-mano wrestling in any of the game's match types.

Mark Turnell, design director of the game, said the most intriguing and compelling TNA Impact! match type is their Ultimate X match, where wrestlers need to climb up to these cables suspended over the ring and shimmy their way to the middle to unhook a belt or hanging X and drop into the ring for victory.

"That brings to light a lot of strengths of TNA," explained Turnell. "Their wrestlers are a lot more athletic. They do a lot more dangerous high-flying moves from turnbuckles or ropes. They'll even tightrope along the ropes because their ropes are tighter than in the WWE. They aren't afraid to leap from those cables down into the ring. That allows for more high-flying and over-the-top action in the game."

Also taking an arcade take on open world action is Wheelman, which Midway has created in conjunction with Vin Diesel’s Wheelman film. Set in Barcelona, the game allows players to get out of their vehicle and engage in gunfights, combat and exploration. Those cars will come in handy as shields from bullets, but well-timed shots can also explode a vehicle and take out multiple enemies.

"Melee is my favorite, because this brings the idea of punching into a driving game," said Shaun Himmerick, executive producer of Wheelman. “This feature will allow you to destroy a car. You can be in the middle of nowhere on the open road and just destroy a car. We focus tested with people and they just spent time driving around in traffic and sending cars flying. It’s fun to do."

Midway’s offering a unique blend of gameplay in a virtual Sin City with This is Vegas from Surreal Studios. The game’s built around four pillars of gameplay-- Party, Fighting, Driving, and Gambling. The combat in the game, which comes into play often in the bouncer role, involves deep melee with combos, kicks and punches. There’s an entire sub-culture of street racers who like to drag off-strip a la The Fast and the Furious. Like GTA IV, you can drive any vehicle you find in the game. And racing is an entire meta-game unto itself. And there’s also gambling in huge virtual casinos, and mini-games at nightclubs like dancing and bartending.

"There's a lot of space in the open world genre to explore and it doesn't just have to be crime-based games," said Alan Patmore, executive producer of the game. "We set about taking the vibe of Vegas and turning it into tangible and fun gameplay mechanics that support more traditional open world mechanics like fighting and driving. That was the inspiration. Some of the challenges we had were figuring out how to make it all work together and how to balance the mechanics and have them work off of each other."

It should be noted that Midway’s line-up of games were running on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 technology, which Midway is using exclusively across all of its studios. With this diverse line-up titles, which also included Unreal Tournament 3, it seems like Midway’s new use of UE3 is shaping up to be a smart decision.