Unfortunately, this is true. People look at Batman's Arkham series and think, wrongly, they're some all encompassing series on being Batman. They're not. They have very specific settings where Batman is isolated from a lot of what makes him Batman in comics/film/television.
Now, before people jump up and say Origins/Knight are in Gotham, they're not. Not really. Origins has no civilians because of Christmas and Knight has no civilians following a terrorist strike from Scarecrow. They need to have Batman isolated, otherwise, how would mechanics like the Batmobile work if there were people on the street who you could run over?
So, firstly, you need to adjust the setting, one that makes Superman as isolated as Batman. Now, this isn't actually too much of a problem, plenty of these exist: Kandor/New Krypton, Apokolips, Phantom Zone.
Then you've got the problem of enemies. In the Arkham games, obviously a single thug can kill you, even quicker if they are armed. So you need villains that are sufficiently powerful to harm Superman, but not of equal power so that every random thug would be able to fight off several Supermen. I guess this isn't too hard. Phantom Wraiths/Parademons/New Kryptonians just aren't as powerful. You could also introduce areas of the game with Kryptonite so more damage is done to Superman.
But then again, under siege like that, he's a superpowered Batman, like you said.
Then you need to get to the meat of the game. Arkham's games, are essentially all just detailing a chase (Arkham had Joker, City the cure etc), so what could Superman have? A way to get home? No matter what, this is probably the biggest challenge, in terms of constructing the game narrative.
Then you've got to factor in how his powers work. Would heat vision have a reticule? Can he run out of power? Just small things like that could throw off an entire game.
It's certainly not impossible. But people aren't looking at how the Arkham series was successful. Just that it was.
Hmmm... very good questions. Very good observations. Yes, the Arkham series has slowly included vital things of the Batman mythos. All they did the first time was get JUST enough for you to feel like Batman, and then they polished the heck out of it. Superman should get a similar tack. So what's the bare minimum?
The flip side is that while Batman is about striking fear into the villains, Superman is about instilling hope into the civilians. Without people to immediately protect, you can't really be Superman, at least, I can't.
I think the basis for a Superman game, the core of the plot/gameplay is him building something. Superman is helping with construction, or reconstruction, rescuing hostages, fixing problems that might be a challenge map for Batman, but for Superman are as simple as opening a grate, and finally talking to people to 'activate' them with hope or whatever, just as Batman 'activates' thugs with interrogation after he finishes a stealth challenge. This brings the people out, and they (or one in particular) in turn give him what he needs for the next bit of the story, then he goes on to face the next monster, who is camped out somewhere that functions as an arena for gameplay purposes, who is making that part of town no longer safe/hopeful and tearing down what Superman has built. Someone's gotta go. So it's more a territory defense/acquisition thing than a chase, so to speak.
How his powers work, that stuff is just tweak. We've seen super powers in video games enough that we can get a pretty good idea how things can go, and how we can improve them to be even more fun. Yes, you'd need a reticule for heat vision (bonus for having two small red eye-shaped dots). I'd have his powers based on his 'focus' bar that works just like the blue mana/endurance/whatever energy bar in every other game.
BUT even with all this, it might be better to have Superman on War World or somewhere that's some kinda feasible for procedural generation to handle, and do all this. It also would make more sense then to have constant natural disasters.
Overall here's how things workout to me gameplay wise, in terms of fun analogizing:
Arkham Batman -> War World Superman
Boss Combat Puzzles -> Boss Combat Puzzle (Odd Stages of Final Fight)
Room of Thugs Combat Challenges -> Boss Smash Fest (Preliminary fight(s), Even Stages of Final Fight)
Stealth Predator Challenges using Gadgets -> City Building/Repair Challenges using Powers
Grappling/Gliding Platforming Objectives-> Flight Race/Stunt/Courier Objectives
Rapidly tapping button to open Grates -> Rapidly tapping a button to stop a group of criminals
Interrogation Scenes -> Inspirational Scenes
Tracking Clues/Threats w/ Detective Vision -> Searching for Trouble/Information with Super Senses
Riddler Clues -> Myxlsptlk Knick-Knacks
5 minute intro scene as Bruce Wayne -> 5 minute intro scene as Clark Kent
Yeah, fighting the boss multiple times sounds like a very Superman thing to do. The bosses I think would make for great even fights include:
Kryptonians: Zod, Ursa, Faora, Non, Quex-El, Jax-Ur, Eradicator (sorta)
Earthlings: Luthor (Powersuit?), Bizzarro, Toyman (Huge Mecha), Metallo, Parasite, Solomon Grundy
Other Aliens: Mongul, Lobo, Maxima, Kalibak, Brainiac, Myxlsptlk, Doomsday
Good question.
Changing back into Clark could be something to explore when the player isn't in epic battles. Saving people without breaking cover, investigating leads, etc.
If they can come up with a good way that using super senses as Superman won't work, that might be cool, otherwise, it seems very restrictive, and not very Superman-like.
