5. Deteriorated Combat
As I said in the introduction, Arkham is famous for its brilliant combat, with City building on the firm groundwork placed by Asylum to create a structure more satisfying than a night in the Four Seasons with a Victoria's Secret model. In Arkham Origins however, they not only refuse to add to what was experienced in Arkham City, but actively take away from it. During freeflow the Dark Knight, trained in tens of martial arts styles, will randomly punch the air instead of chaining his blow to another enemy, meaning you can potentially lose your combo at any moment from no fault of your own. On top of this, his countering has also been made worse, as you can no longer cancel a punch to react to an approaching blow behind you, with Batman instead helplessly allowing himself to be whacked in the back of the head like a rabbit caught in headlights. What's even worse is that enemies seem to be further away from you when they begin their attack, often coming from off-screen so you never get an opportunity to counter their blows anyway. This removes the sense of power and fluidity felt in City, leaving you instead feeling like a mentally challenge Panda flailing desperately and relying on your thick skull to lessen the blows rather than simply preventing them. Furthermore, enemies have largely gone back to tacking you one at a time, with me only have to do a double counter about three times during the course of the entire game. While it could be argued this was intentional to demonstrate how Batman isn't as far into his career, enjoyment and gameplay should not be sacrificed for the sake of continuity, especially when there are so many continuity issues later in the game anyway. Speaking of which...