Oh, but on the movie, I loved it. It was the subtler moments that conveyed the awe of Superman’s world that worked for me (and they are all moments I can easily see other people feeling nothing from). Little things like after the oil rig, zoning out and coming to with the whales drifting by just hit me with this “he will experience things we never can” vibe. Or the sappy feeling the sunlight and reaching for it moments and the 2 dad’s speeches, did it for me.

But my only real issue agrees with what you said:
“I would have liked a little more emotional tension between the characters (even at the expense of a few buildings staying upright).”
The “Good guy knocks bad guy/gal through building, then bad guy knocks good guy through building, then bad guy through building, good guy through building…” seemed to get pretty repetitive for me and I was actually less interested in the action than in the characters. Don’t know if it was the movie or if I’m getting old, but this was the first movie where I took a potty break during an action scene because I figured they’d just throw each other through buildings for a while still and I wouldn’t miss anything important.

I think it may be an escapist / anti-social thing for me. When I game on the PC, I can put on my headphones, peer at my monitor, and shut the rest of the world out. Playing on the PS3 means that I’m taking centre stage in the living room and will likely have a default audience, that I’m “performing.”

Well, that and the fact that starting up the PS3 also means stealing the best TV in the house away from my wife and daughter. My wife would rather watch TV than play games, and my daughter likes games but really isn’t old enough to be watching me cause multiple concussions as I bash my way through Arkham City or go on an old-school Red Dead Rampage.

All that to say, I think I’ll be sticking with my current console for as long as I can, and put my extra pennies into a PC graphics card when the time comes. There are still many good games for the PS3 out there that I haven’t tried yet, and it runs Netflix just fine.

This is the crux of all the issues that D&D Next is trying to resolve, yes? It will be interesting to see how DDN tries to unite players of all editions without it turning into some murky compromise in terms of rule sets.

Yah, when the players see a hole in the plot that you missed, be prepared to BS your way through it, quickly. One of the best things you can do is listen to the players ideas of what could fill the hole and just run with whatever idea sounds best.

It’s interesting that you mentioned romance. I’m gonna have to agree with the rest of the comments; romance at the table is not a bad thing. It’s a big part of life so also it ought to be a big part of your imaginary character’s imaginary life. It makes for good drama, and if nothing else, good verisimilitude. I’ve written more about it here –> http://violentmediarpg.blogspot.com/2013/01/sex-sexuality-dungeons-dragons.html . If anybody cares to read more on the subject.

I take some of the blame as the GM, I have to, but the 4e system is just ever so painfully slow. I’m done with it.