@BREAD WARRIOR: Do you know if pressing the jump button while swinging makes Spidey jump off his web line like past games?
I don't have a problem in principle with holding the swing button making Spidey swing continuously at a constant altitude. I actually had the feeling this was the case after watching the E3 demos. It's sort of like holding the high profile button in Assassin's Creed and pointing in the direction you want to go, and that's a system that's fun and still gives you the chance to use some skill. It seems that this system lets you point in the general direction you want to go to control that part of your movement while just holding the swing button. My issue is that it removes the ability to just hang on a webline, which is admittedly not that big of a deal. In fact, I'd take the ability to perch on lots of cool points in the city and survey the streets over the ability to hang from a webline every time.
But the other thing this feature removes is the ability to do a 360 degree loop around an overhanging object like a crane or pole. If Spidey lets go of the web at a maximum height every time, that isn't possible. Now I guess they could build the system to make holding the swing button do a loop if you're holding it while under some structure like a pole, but I don't expect that to be in this game. Come to think of it, I think the only games that let you do a loop like that were SM2 and SM3. I know you can't do it in USM, and I don't remember that feature being in Web of Shadows at all.
The funny thing is, Arkham City's navigation system is pretty simple and just requires you to hold one button to glide, another to dive, and point in a direction. You can change that up by firing the grapple gun with the option to boost that and continue gliding. I don't hear many people complaining about that system, yet TASM's system seems very similar. Yet because Spider-Man 2 gave us so many more options and subtlety, we feel like we're missing something now. There are things I miss, but this new system looks like a lot of fun on its own.