Offline, though, is where I was pleasantly surprised.

There’s ranked and unranked versions of standard matches or king of the hill, and they operate as smoothly as they should. Online matches fair about how you’ expect. The campaign isn’t all the game has to offer, though, sporting a number of game modes for both online and offline gamers. It’s not Oscar worthy stuff, but it’s top tier for a fighting game, and it’s well worth the handful of hours it’ll take you to beat not only for the story, but for the generous amount of unlockables you’ll earn as well. The sequel sees Superman escape the prison he’s been held in since his defeat, a third “neutral” party enter the gray, and a bigger, meaner baddie that forces them all to consider where their loyalties should really lie. Superman snaps, literally punches a hole through the Joker, and the superhero world is split between Superman loyalists and the Batman-led resistance. If you’re out of the loop, the long and short of the backstory is that Joker messed with Superman’s mind and tricked him into killing Lois Lane (who was pregnant with his child- yeah, it’s dark stuff). That streak continues here, with Injustice 2 sporting a short, but extremely satisfying campaign continuing directly after the events of its predecessor. Story has traditionally never been something strongly associated with fighting games, but ever since Mortal Kombat 9 NetherRealm has been bucking the trend. Becoming a bit of a sensation in its own right with a surprisingly engaging story spawning an uber-successful comic run, PC players can now finally hop back into the Injustice franchise and experience the second chapter of this brutal beat-em-up.

It was a surprise, then, that five years later the studio jumped back in with both feet and not only took another stab at DC’s iconic characters, but made an incredibly compelling game that stood on it’s own without many ties to Sub-Zero and friends.

An awkward hodgepodge of worlds that didn’t seem to really meld, gamers moved on fairly quickly to better things. Back in 2008 Mortal Kombat developer NetherRealm tried their hand at a crossover with the DC Universe, and it was, at best, incredibly underwhelming.

Injustice 2 offline character history