The standalone CPU is weak, but not the big deal it seems in relation to its HD counterparts due the modern architecture and buffed, feature-laden GPGPU, all of which is discounting the potential 'life-ring' of EDRAM. People are up in arms because the architecture and power-prioritising is being compared to an engineering agenda that is 7 years old at least. Wii U is definitely competitive power-wise, but it's also competitive commercially, meaning that it doesn't have the resources to burn which consumers and even maybe developers expected. People are just going to have to be creative to get performance, as they always have.
The fact that Arkham City AE suffers hiccups is most certainly a result of being crafted on a goddamn ancient engine fine-tuned to run optimally on the hardware it was designed for (seriously, how Rocksteady got Unreal3 to look as good as it does on PS3 of all things is mindblowing). I'm surprised AC runs on Wii U as well as it does.
Likewise, a Wii U game that was developed alongside its PS360 cousins actually turned out better than either in the form of Sonic All Stars Racing Transformed.
I'm not saying that these results are defining examples of the Wii U's pecking order status, but I do feel that the obvious is being overlooked because it's more fun to assume Nintendo have fucked up royally.
I'm not at all worried about Wii U's apparent lack of muscle given that the first batch of games are certainly no slouch when it comes to performance, and developer understanding of the beast is only going to exponentially improve.