While web-slinging through downtown Manhattan fighting robots, it hits you that this game could have been awesome.
Graphics:
This game looks good from a far and in Motion. Even if you stop up high you'll enjoy the graphics, but if you get close to textures and overly-reused objects or other in game pedestrians you'll see that this game was not meant for you to be crawling around on the ground. Which is sad cause many of the game's main missions take place in confined boring-looking sewers and bland labs. But when you're free roaming throughout the city, this game really shines and actually makes you feel like Spider-man.
Gameplay:
Many of the gameplay elements have been borrowed (combat especially) from Rocksteady's Batman games, yes, but it's still a lot of fun. However, if you weren't a fan of Arkham Asylum or Arkham City that might dampen how you feel about this game's control mechanics. There's also this element called web-rush in which you slow down time to super slow and you can target an area or enemy in slow-motion release this button to shoot at there/him at top speed. It's a neat element that in some ways overpowers Spider-man but at the same time can really give you a "rush" (see what I did there?). It will probably get old until you can upgrade the abilities of what you do when you hit the enemy after rushing him, such as web-hurricane or slowed-down take out moves which look pretty cool. All-in-all this element capitalizes on the fact that while Spider-man isn't the Hulk and can't just absorb bullets, he can move so fast that enemies quickly loose track of him. Sadly, as I mentioned earlier, you will be forced to go into "dungeon" areas like bland sewers and labs, not only are they graphically boring but gameplay wise they force you to be stealthy (just like Batman) but aren't nearly as fun as the Dark Knight. This is where the pace of this game really slows to a crawl (did you catch it that time?) and collectibles will be your only joy in these dark places. But as long as Peter Parker is out in the sunshine chasing robots and make'n jokes and slinging around the city it'll feel like the best game in the world even if it's elements are used to a repetitive bore.
Story-line:
This game takes place in the universe of the recently rebooted Amazing Spider-Man movie. The game takes place following the events of the movie, so I recommend watching the movie first. However, I feel that this limited what Beebox could do with the Spider-man character, they've already shown us they have some creativity with their earlier time-traveling editions of the character and in the use of the jokes and quwips in this game, they clearly understand Spider-man's light hearted nature (no, Sony, Spidey doesn't need to be dark like Batman to sell well).
Conclusion:
While this game is good it is in no ways great. The gameplay elements that shine among some drabby design choices and limited-repetitive-over-used gameplay mechanics really make you wonder what they could have done with a more open book on the Spider-Man universe or some help from the folks at Rocksteady. Who should pick up this game? If you're a fan of sandbox games and spider-man then you should pick this up (I am a fan of both so that certainly colored my feelings on the game), others might want to give it a rent first.