Catwoman loosely follows the plot of the movie, which loosely follows the comic book. Patience Philips is a shy artist with low self-esteem. After she discovers a dark secret that her employer, a cosmetics firm, is hiding, Patience is caught in a corporate conspiracy and killed. She is then brought back to life as Catwoman. From here, the story is not very clear. Even the intro is chopped up and doesn't really explain things clearly. In fact, if I hadn't seen the movie, I would not have known what the hell was going on.
Catwoman tries to combine the puzzle-solving, platforming of Prince of Persia with the combat mechanics of Rise to Honor. To its credit, the game manages to do a fairly good job of capturing Prince's platforming, and features some tricky rooms to navigate through. Using her feline-like prowess, Catwoman can climb certain walls, dangle and flip from high wires, and even use her whip to perform some Indiana Jones type swings. While I thoroughly enjoyed this mechanic in Prince of Persia, it doesn't seem to work in Catwoman, and comes off as frustrating. Yes, the designs of the rooms you have to navigate are interesting, but they feel too complicated. Even the in-game help does a terrible job of letting you know what's going on. For example, I spent nearly 20 minutes trying to figure out how to escape from the very first room in the game because the in-game help was giving me the "tip" near the wrong wall. This was soon followed by 30 minutes of trying to make my way to the top of a nearby building, only to fall all the way to the bottom because of a terrible camera angle. Instead of going for the useful angles, the camera tends to go for "better looking" angles. When combined with labyrinthine level layouts, this makes for a very frustrating experience.
Combat is poorly done. As in Rise to Honor, all combat is handled by flicking the right-analog stick in various directions for hours on end. When crouching, Catwoman will perform a variety of kicks. When standing, she'll either whip or punch (depending on how close she is to the target). Rise to Honor already proved that this mechanic has a ways to go before being useful, and Catwoman only furthers that case. The system rarely works the way you want, and it is not uncommon to have Catwoman kicking or whipping at empty air.
Another interesting aspect of combat is that no one dies as a result of combat. Not that I am advocating a gore-fest, but the lengths that Catwoman goes to in order to show that no one is really hurt is just silly. After being pummeled, enemies begin to glow yellow and stop attacking you. I even had one guy run and jump into a dumpster after a thorough ass kicking. Even knocking someone off a rooftop results in them walking away unharmed.