I really like it but your descriptions/summary above about nail it. Great looker and has some fun multiballs. To me the game is a little too easy although the crane definitely can send the balls wherever so it adds some more randomness to it. Sounds definitely lack a little in my opinion. I view mine not as a keeper but great fun for awhile and definitely glad I got it for now.

You got a Family Guy which I would trade a BDK for in a heartbeat. Why can I not find that game!?

How could you steal it from me in my own backyard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess I'll have to remember the $100 bill trick, maybe I have a hot girl in a bikini rolling around in them too to help seal the deals.

Have you watched Bowen's tutorial on BDK? Lots of great information on rules and features of the game. (good and bad). Mine is not going anywhere.

I really like BDK, and find myself playing it more than newer stern like Tron & TF. I don't find it overly easy myself, as the Batman missions are tough to get thru IMO. You have to get past the clunky voice work for sure...but that's not a big deal. I mean other than an angry bat yelling "JAAAACKPOTTTT" at you 1000 times a game

You noted most of this already. VERY nice looking. Most of the toys are either dupes from other games (LOTR POTD?), wasted space (teeter totter and Joker can) or pretty awesome (crane)

For me, the worst part of the game is that it is a 1 ramp game.

If I could have a collection like say, Tatman, I would have kept it. In a 3 - 4 pin collection it just wasn't outstanding enough. FAR from a bad pin, though.....

The crane is the best toy ever
The right side of the playfield is exciting
The center of the playfirld is good
The left side is a wasteland, 6 targets, drawbridge does not affect game play, joker drum thing WTF???
Voice acting is really bad

But I do like the game

The crane is an awesome toy, but the game is very easy with long ball times. It's not one of my favorites, but I certainly don't hate it. I think it would fit in well with the other games in your collection. If you enjoy playing it and like the theme, I say go for it!

My name is "thedarkknight" and I walked away from two games on that machine. Everyone has different tastes, but I did not like it, except for the crane.............The crane is fun.

TDK is a decent game. It's not the best Stern nor the worst. It's basically an offshoot of the POTC ruleset with modes and score multipliers, but it's a much better game than POTC. The good:

1) crane is pretty awesome
2) has really good multiplier strategy
3) has good stacking and multiballs
4) has a lot of different ways to get a high score

The bad:

1) the center ramp requires a stupid amount of shots by default. You need to turn it down in order to enjoy the game
2) the modes all have the same shots. Pretty uninspiring.
3) the voice work is pretty substandard
4) the playfield layout is kind of iffy. The hurry up thing is kind of annoying after a while, the center ramp likes to center drain a lot, the POTD is as lame on Batman as it was on LOTR, the scarecrow shot needed an additional switch to tell bumpers vs shots, etc.
5) Ball times are kind of long

It's a fun game, probably in the 2nd tier of Stern games (below TSPP, LOTR, SM, IM, TRON, etc, in the group with POTC, Elvis, RBION ). I owned one for about 4 months, played the crap of it. I liked it a lot but got to the point where all my games basically came down to hitting the center ramp over and over and over.

I played a BDK on route and not sure the code, the op has a good reputation so I assume it was updated. My take away was that the ball times were insanely long, I got bored after a while.

I traded my LotR for a BDK. With the right mods it's a beauty.
The voice work is not so imoprtant for me as a german cause I don't know the real voices from the movie.
The gameplay is great, but I turned down the required ramp shots. A few weeks ago I started to think about to trade it for something new. BUT I still play it alot and it's not growing old for me.
So I think it's now a keeper for me. I think it's an unique game. But I won't have it as my only pin. It's great in combination. I now have a SM a AC/DC and this BDK and it works in this lineup.
When I have enough SM or AC/DC I play BDK. And after BDK the others are great. For me BDK is realy good but only with the SM.

But there is just one thing that makes me angry about it. I still think about what a better game it could have been if there would be a new update with better modes. STERN and Lyman should take Spider Man as a standard how finished game code should be.
If Lyman has not enough time for it, they should hire one more new programmer who could finish the job.

The crane truly is the best toy ever. A lot of people really liked it after the latest code update, but I'm a weirdo that loved it before the code update, and now don't have nearly the same taste for it.

The crane is absolutely amazing though. If I had the space for one, I would totally own it just for the crane. It isn't on my short list of favorite machines, but that crane is easily on my short list of favorite toys.