It would appear my optimism in the previous article was unwarranted as the re-release of Arkham Knight is gathering many of the same complaints that got it pulled from Steam in the first place.

The one ray of sunshine in all of this is the fact that WB are offering a full refund for both the game and the season pass no matter how many hours you put in to it. This offer will be valid until the end of 2015.

In a post on the Steam forums for Arkham knight the developers had this to say about the state of the game:

"We are very sorry that many of our customers continue to be unhappy with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight. We worked hard to get the game to live up to the standard you deserve but understand that many of you are still experiencing issues.

Until the end of 2015, we will be offering a full refund on Batman: Arkham Knight PC, regardless of how long you have played the product. You can also return the Season Pass along with the main game (but not separately). For those of you that hold onto the game, we are going to continue to address the issues that we can fix and talk to you about the issues that we cannot fix."

After reading that I just feel sad for everyone involved. Those most excited for the newest Batman game got a barely functional release while the developers in charge of the patching spent a lot of time and effort without any apparent gain. And given the tone of the post it would appear that the issues are so severe that they might not even get fixed. But perhaps the saddest thing of all is that most of the people who can actually run the game properly are saying its quite good.

All I can hope now, after this whole fiasco, is that people realize that pre-ordering games is just not worth it. All PC games today are released as digital downloads meaning there will always be plenty of copies available, no matter when you try to buy them. So even if you're extremely eager to get your hands on a game simply waiting a few hours after release will let you know if its worth your time and money or not.

Luckily Arkham Knight is offering refunds to those affected so this lesson won't be a painful one but a different game in the future might not, so do be careful.