Couldn't agree more. At first blush, it's like "just hit the same button over and over!" and 80% of the time, that's about right. But the other 20% requires sharp timing to do counters and stuns and evades so that you can do the freeflow combos. And I loves me some freeflow combos.
Admittedly, I am still playing it through on Easy. I like to just blow through a game first and get the "story" aspect of it, and then take a more measured playthrough the second time (exception: i try to 100% Zelda and Metroid and Castlevania when I can).
I've been seeking out as many Riddler trophies as I can manage, and I have about half so far, just past the Croc's Lair level, but mainly I don't want the initial narrative to be incomplete because I keep dying at a certain point over and over again. I'll deal with that frustration when I'm ready to graduate from gaming experience to gaming challenge.
What I really dig is that (at least in the PC version) there are a ton of unlockable challenge modes where you can do brawls and stealth missions and get bonuses for doing special takedowns.