I'm increasingly of the opinion that Scott Snyder has some great ideas about Batman but his stuff's just not for me. That one-off issue with Becky Cloonan on art was the best Batman story I've read all year, but Death of the Family was some good ideas wrapped around a needlessly violent and decompressed story. (My favorite part: you can show people dancing until their feet bleed, you can show a tapestry made of sewn-together still-living people -- but if you want to say "ass", you'd better use comic-book symbols to bleep it out.) I think both the setup and the resolution were solid. I just think there was too much dithering in-between. Even without the half-dozen tie-in books.
Gail Simone recently responded to a reader who was put off by the grimness of Death of the Family by saying, "The bat-verse in general IS in a pretty dark place right now, but I do believe some lighter stories are coming." Here's hoping. Snyder's already done some great work -- but great work where Batman smiles now and again would be more to my tastes.