Grade: B-

There was much to hope for with this game. Its developer is Rocksteady – the studio which gave us the superb Batman: Arkham series. A lot of money was poured into it, and a lot of time (the release date was much delayed). The premise is a winner, too: the Suicide Squad – Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang and King Shark (a massive bloke with a shark’s head) – are dispatched to murder the noisome goody-goodies of the Justice League because, y’know, alien invasion, mind control etc, etc.

Who wouldn’t be tickled by the prospect of having Harley slap Wonder Woman upside the head with a giant mallet, or – a boy can dream – seeing King Shark stuff the top half of the Flash in his mouth in one go so just his legs are sticking out? And, well, it’s part-way there. The graphics are gorgeous, the Metropolis through which you roam is expansive and well-realised and the cutscenes are fun. There’s a lot of banter – Boomerang’s main character trait is being Australian; Deadshot’s is being boring – and the short-ish campaign mode cracks along amusingly enough.

But the characters – you can play as any of the anti-heroes or join others online for a four-player co-op – all handle rather similarly. Whether you’re swinging, jet-packing or shark-jumping from rooftop to rooftop, the traversing mechanics feel like variations on a theme. The combat, though pleasingly hectic, never achieves the flow of the combo-building in the Arkham games. Once you’ve dispatched 20 rooftops of identi-glowing purple enemies, you’ve kinda dispatched them all. Save yourself 50 quid and buy Batman: Arkham City instead.