I just tried arkham city and didn't see any trace of GFWL. Kept pushing the home button on my xbox controller and nothing happened.
Just checked my copy and GFWL is right there, no changes. Also, GFWL started in May 2007, so that is a little over six years of life, not "almost a decade". Be honest now.
Unlike most of the others in here, I do not mind GFWL. To me, it was a neat addition to being a 360 owner and gamer. I work with it better than most others I guess. I have been lucky, in that the only games I ever had trouble moving save data for were the MS PC titles, Gears of War and Halo 2. My Halo 2 save went completely corrupt after I reinstalled, but my Gears of War save only resets Act V back to "Normal" completion instead of "Insane" - I know this as I have moved that save twice and it happened both times. Shadowrun seems to be transferable, as I got high total (kill 100 elves, etc.) achievements after moving my data a while back.
*KNOCKS ON WOOD* my Batman experiences have been good. The only problem I ever had was when they first patched Arkham Asylum, and that 300 meg patch was trying to pipeline through the GFWL updater. That did suck, I will not lie. But that was also fixed shortly after the issue came out. And from then out, no issues.
Now when I installed my AC GOTY key (bought from Amazon) on Steam, I had to reinstall the GFWL client (Steam force installed an older version oddly enough) and Windows Live Sign In Assistant; but after that, it runs like a champ.
Finally, all the people who are excited for BS2 to finally play it, I warn you now - there is no in-game controller support because the HUD is designed differently than the console version. This was a design decision by 2K, and they were already asked about changing it and they said it was not possible.
As for the DLC, the Rapture Metro Map Pack maps will not come up in an online lobby unless all players own the DLC. This might happen with a Steam based version of it because the issue is in the game code and NOT an issue with GFWL - 2k's own forums has more information about that. The Protector Trials are hard as hell. Minerva's Den is quite good.
My sincerest hope here is that whatever they are doing with the games is like what Toy Soldiers does - it lets you choose between GFWL and Steamworks. If you want to keep the most people happy, this is probably the best way to go.