Dave Itzkoff reviewed the $75 Absolute Watchmen edition in Sunday's New York Times Book Review, and in addition to noting some of the important extras included in this new edition, he analyzes the dramatic realism of Alan Moore, who he notes "has often used comics to illustrate how reality can be deadlier to superheroes than Kryptonite." 

The all too realistic Watchmen characters get their due.  "The would-be heroes of Watchmen have staggeringly complex psychological profiles," Itzkoff says.  And the narrative techniques and abundant allusions of Moore's story and Dave Gibbons' artwork are also noted.  But he also focuses on what makes the book a great read.  "But the story of Watchmen, carefully plotted and decidedly finite, deserves equally close attention, as its acuteness has not dulled with age," he says.

Itzkoff also notes the important role that Watchmen played in the development of ever more dark and gritty superhero comics, and lauds the differences between Moore's work and much of current superhero comics, "a domain he has largely ceded to writers and artists who share his fascination with brutality but not his interest in its consequences, his eagerness to tear down old boundaries but not his drive to find new ones."