Crime never sleeps, so there’s no rest for the Caped Crusader. And apparently, Rocksteady Studios doesn’t rest much, either. Just two years after flooring us with Arkham Asylum (OXM rating: 9.0) — easily the best Batman game ever when it debuted — they’ve completely outdone themselves. Arkham City isn’t just a great sequel, or a great superhero game; it’s also one of the best action games on Xbox 360.

That’s right: comic-book fan or no, you will love this game. Arkham City is, in a broad sense, the same kind of experience as its predecessor: an open-world mix of combat, stealth, and detective work. But it offers so much more in almost every way, starting with its setting. More than a year after the disastrous events at Arkham Asylum, now-mayor Quincy Sharp has walled off a chunk of Gotham and made it an open-air prison monitored by private security agents (Tyger Corp.) in choppers. The new warden? Longtime Bat-foe Hugo Strange. That’s bad news for the Dark Knight but sweet for us — it means a gameworld several times larger than Arkham Asylum’s, complete with familiar locations ranging from the Gotham City Police Department to the Natural History Museum to Batman’s birthplace, Crime Alley.

The whole gloomy prison is lovingly, vividly detailed (especially on a 3DTV, which adds a subtle, impressive layer of visual depth), but what you do there is the stuff that’ll haunt your dreams. Written by cartoon/comic scribe Paul Dini, the 15-hour main campaign pits you against the best of Batman’s rogue’s gallery — The Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze, and more — as you try to figure out Strange’s devious master plan. For such an expansive tale, it’s surprisingly taut, crammed full of slick twists and crackling dialogue. Naturally, the story benefits hugely from the game’s awesome production values, with stirring music and stellar voiceovers headlined by franchise stars Kevin Conroy (Batman) and Mark Hamill (The Joker).

Better yet, that main campaign is only a small chunk of the game’s content this time around. Not only are hundreds of XP-granting Riddler trophies sprinkled about the city, but this time you also get several full-fledged Riddler missions — puzzle-heavy scenarios where you rescue emergency workers from deadly traps. And the game features more than a dozen interesting sidequests, including finding the frozen wife of Mr. Freeze, stopping random beatings of political prisoners, and teaming up with Bane to destroy Titan canisters around the city. Wisely, some sidequests challenge your heroic abilities: hunting ace assassin Deadshot (!) demands careful crime-scene analysis (tracking bullet trajectories and scanning sniping spots), while catching serial killer Zsasz requires you to cross the map in minimal time.