From its very first reveal, I've never been sure how to feel about Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. You get to play as Harley Quinn, and that's enough for me to pay at least a little bit of attention. I'm also an ardent Arkham defender, but that cuts both ways. Rocksteady says it's building on Arkham by setting this game in the same universe, but Harley seems like a different interpretation of her character, the colour palette and tone is flipped 180, and the narrative doesn't seem to fit. Gotham Knights, which tried to distance itself from the Arkhamverse, seemed like a much more fitting sequel. Suicide Squad has gone away and come back anew after a marketing fumble and extended delay, but I'm still not sure about it.

Taken in isolation, the featurette released by the developer this week was fine. Good, in parts. The fact the Suicide Squad get their pseudopowers from stealing Justice League contraband is intriguing, and while the four main characters seemed a little cliche, that's the source material. None of them seemed annoying, they all had differences in both gameplay and characterisation, and no one said "so, we're some kinda Suicide Squad". If this was a first trailer, I'd be basically on board with the game, in an 'okay, let's see what they've got' kind of way.

But this wasn't the first trailer. And mostly, it was an exercise in what they didn't show. Clawing back ground from the woeful PlayStation State of Play showcase that saw the game immediately delayed again as it was retooled, Suicide Squad was no longer coy. We not only learned how the team got its powers, we also had several more Batman teases, saw more of the Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Superman, as the biggest guns of the League were shown off to entice new players. We also got some time with Penguin, returning from the Arkham games (who unlike Harley, retained his character design).

Penguin is our arms dealer, and right after learning that, we sped away to something else. The guns, with their mathematical waffle offering 6 percent damage increase to Bat-infused enemies with a certain scope, were absent. This doesn't mean they've cut that irritating and time-consuming filler, it just means they've learned it isn't popular so they won't be showing it anymore. People complain that this is ripped from live-service games like Destiny, but that's a cart and horse situation. In Destiny, you're playing forever and tiny advantages stack up over time, and can be core blocks for new builds. But in a primarily single-player game like this, there's not enough sense of evolution or progression, and instead makes getting a new gun feel like homework.

via Rocksteady

I don't mind the switch to Metropolis as much as others did (Arkham is over, moving on is good), and the bright colours clearly suit the tone of the game. But the 'brag' that this was "twice the size of Arkham City" did make me worry a little. Arkham City isn't a huge game, so we're not into Assassin's Creed: Valhalla territory, but this team has shown it excels in small spaces. Embracing a much larger world, adding multiplayer capabilities, and borrowing from live-service trappings for its firearms suggests a design philosophy chasing trends, and with several delays, the game risks growing stale before it arrives.

This was, however, the best the gameplay has ever looked. Although I must admit, that's a low bar. It seemed faster than previous versions, and incorporated more melee action that superhero games (especially those made by Rocksteady) need in order to feel powerful. However, that was offset by the focus on verticality that didn't seem anywhere near as fluid as they kept telling me it was, the endless spongy enemies, and the fact it was a shooter at all. I'm most likely to enjoy a shooter when they're cartoonish and over-the-top like this one, but it doesn't go far enough. Many of the YouTube and Twitter comments on the featurette compared it to Sunset Overdrive - this was used in both the derogatory and complimentary sense equally. As the World's Number One Sunset Overdrive defender, Suicide Squad has not proven worthy of the comparison yet.

This is where I particularly dislike the Sunset Overdrive comparison. The game is used as a shorthand for fast but empty gameplay, and I can't argue this viewpoint is exactly wrong. However, not only did Sunset Overdrive nail its speed with a fluidity the choppy movements of Suicide Squad are yet to prove capable of, it was endlessly creative. The guns weren't just machine guns that did slightly more damage when they had a special clip attached. They had a bowling ball cannon, grenades made of exploding teddy bears, and a gatling gun that fired vinyl records, slicing enemies to pieces. Suicide Squad just has bullets with algebra. It's not the same.

Remember that viral 'top 25 games' thing from a couple of months ago? I put Sunset Overdrive on mine and was mocked relentlessly. When the sequel comes I shall have my vengeance.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is finally getting its marketing right, we can say that much. But just because it isn't showing us the weakest parts of its game doesn't mean they're not there, and it remains to be seen how much the game has been changed. Being compared to Sunset Overdrive is no insult, but so far, I'm not sure Suicide Squad deserves it as praise either.

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