Sadly, back then (8 and 16-bit era) it seemed companies would spend most of their budget on the license and then slap it on the cheapest game they could make. Such a sad way to handle things. I can only imagine how many copies a licensed game would sell if it had a good game underneath.

I know the first Batman game we already discussed did pretty well and had TONS of word of mouth support - as well as a decent advertising campaign. At least the NES version was advertised heavily in magazines like Game Players and Game Pro. I don't remember seeing the Genesis version advertised at all. Maybe I just didn't read the magazines Sunsoft was advertising it in.

There are a few good licensed games from that era. May have to pull together a list some day and post it.