What's the Superman thing? Myself I played first Awakening with a character imported from DAO, a 2H fighter, Berserk and Blood. And for a Nightmare difficulty it wasn't a Nightmare difficulty from far. But Nightmare difficulty was liek a good Normal difficulty for me. Well apart in the last fight and the big dragon fight.
When I tried replayed, this time with a new character, a mage, I end in feeling the game too hard and felt that I was more limited in character class choices (ie spells and specializations chosen) and had perhaps choose a wrong build. It's weird but I gave up and didn't think try lower the difficulty to more standard setup.
EDIT: About Superman, Ha the meteorite thing. I don't like much those out of context references, in any game, I felt them either poor humor either mood breaking.
EDIT2: For mention there's a mod that unlocks all DAO specializations, it can be handy.