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The Gotham City Imposters beta is now being opened up to the masses. If you haven't already signed up, you can do so here - www.gothamcityimpostors.com/beta

I'll post my impressions after some play time.

I'm not even gonna dedicate the time to download it, has looked like a cheap cash-in from day one. Not true to the source material at all, probs won't ever play it based on principle alone.

Played about an hour and a half tonight, and I'm seriously impressed.

The game is developed by Monolith. Safe to say they have a pretty good track record with FEAR 1/2, No One Lives Forever, AVP2, Condemned 1/2, and surprisingly The Matrix Online (many enjoyed it!).

Gotham City Imposters most definitely doesn't feel like a quick buck-making downloadable title like I expected. There's a ton of content here just in the beta alone. The game starts with a tutorial, familiarizing yourself with the various concepts and movement abilities. In the beta there's 2 game modes and a couple of maps. Matchmaking is in with party searching.

When I got in the game it's true the aiming felt abit loose. I quickly got used to it though and started having a ton of fun. The game controls just like CoD, no surprises there. Damage numbers fly off enemies when you hit them which is pretty satisfying, including crits for headshots.

The game has an insane amount of customization to suit how you want to play. You can pick a main and secondary weapon, mods for that weapon, and paintjobs. There's Rifles, SMG's, Heavy Weapons, Snipers, Shotguns, Launchers and Assistance weapons. Your support item includes things like grenades, shurikens, hatchets, trap in the box, bear traps, body armour, energy drinks etc.

Your gadget is one of the most interesting selections you'll make. This is how you can move around the world. Gliders, grappling gun, roller skates, spring boots, inflatable insoles. Or you can scrap a special movement option and replace it with a ninja smoke bomb or targeting goggles. It's super fun to string together grapples and zip around the level.

You can customise your characters body shape which affects their movement speed, health and melee damage. You can change their facial appearance, and even their voice including modifying your pitch - awesome! 'Fun Facts' are basically perks, I havn't got to level 7 yet so I can't give a list, but they provide passive bonuses. Your rampage is a move you can unleash when you've built up enough bloodlust. And finally your psych profile is a passive attribute which affects how you earn experience points, these have positives and negatives so you can pick which suits your playstyle.

You can also edit your costume for both bats and jokers, but again I've not hit level 8 yet so I can't go into any more detail about this just yet. You seem to get costume coins, alongside xp, depending on your performance in a match. So it looks like you can buy new costume customisation. There's also 'calling cards' which are pretty much their version of cod's callsigns or bf3's dogtags - customisable kill tags.

The game's style is very very slapstick, as seen from the trailers. It doesn't take itself seriously, which imo lends itself well to the ridiculousness of the gameplay. Something that I really like is the Bioshock'esque little video explanations of how the different things in the game work, such as modes or abilities.

So far I'm super impressed. I didn't expect much at all, but what I've seen so far seems like a ton of fun. I'll keep reporting back as I get further in.

This is from Eurogamer's review of the PC version. I have heard it's a poor console port, but I can't judge without playing myself. They did however give the game 6/10. How familiar do these kind of comments sound when mixed with the score (obviously the game I'm referring to is directly referenced).

In its best moments, Gotham City Impostors is like Shadowrun, the PC/360 multiplayer shooter that was supposed to be a Games for Windows Live killer title and which sank without trace. The resemblances are remarkable, from the gliding abilities to the use of area-of-effect health positions (which, in Impostors, are fixed rather than being player-set); even the silhouettes seem familiar. Impostors does a good job of making its wildly different abilities mesh into some sort of order, such that even the less popular options like spring boots are still seen around. But even if this does exceed Shadowrun's design, at the moment you feel it's heading for the same fate. You can't see anyone playing this in three months, never mind six. There are few enough now.