As far as as comparison goes, its obviously foolish to be expecting this to be as good as or having as great a story as, lets say, The Godfather, but isn't it fair to be comparing this with TDK? Or TA1 or Watchmen or last year's comic book stuff, the genre toppers? This is a CBM and 'will' be compared to them, sequel or not. As Roger Ebert used to say - you can't rate a movie, or anything for that matter, without comparing it to others of the same genre.