nobody here is against these movies having dark tones. that is a non debate. if the killing joke were adapted for the big screen and it was made in the spirit of the book... every user here would be creaming their pants. and that book is like the quintessential dark batman story.
But that's mainly been the complaint about this movie, it's too serious, no humor, too dark.
But the story this movie is based off was pretty damn dark and humorless.
Also I feel like critics were expecting this movie to be bad and they have been saying from the beginning that the movie was gonna be a mess. While marvel movies always get positive hype prior to release and even the bad movies like iron man 3 got great reviews.
I can respect them feeling like this movie portrayed itself to be a more serious toned movie, there fore the story and characters should be on point. But these same critics give marvel movies pass after pass with the terrible story and God awful villians.
The problems in Marvel movies are always ignored. I personally think it's because of the humor aspect makes it easier to over look the problems because they can just claim that the movie was lighthearted fun.
I also feel like critics are afraid to give Disney movies bad scores because it's disney.
Dc movies will always have the stigma of trying to copy or rush what marvel did and this will always affect the critics reviews.