Diablo III Metacritic User Score isn’t Looking so Good

So Diablo III launched and people are having problems. If you didn’t think it would happen you’re either incredibly optimistic or very naive. So gamers wanting to play are a little pissed. I can’t understand that and hell, I even empathize with you. I think we’ve all had a particular game we’ve wanted to play where one bug or problem gets in the way of our enjoyment. And what do some of you guys do? You start becoming the epitome of whiny-snot-nosed-brats.

[Xristo]

I don't own D3 and don't plan on buying it anytime soon (not my fav genre) but I find it hard to believe D3 is an "honest" 0/10 .... this is why Metacritic sucks...users are irrational with their scores.

[WeskerChildReborned]

True, some people just troll on certain games and when they give low scores, they don't even really tell you the reason they give it a low score but that's sometimes. Anyway, people shouldn't even trust the user reviews unless it actually give's detail into why they gave it a low score or high score instead of "It's awesome" or "It suck's". I like my reviews to be detailed but i usually don't base my decision on reviews whether i buy the game or not.

[SilentNegotiator]

Can't get past the login screen?

0/10.

Sorry, but if it doesn't work most of the time, that's a 0. An F. Broken.

And scrolling through the user reviews, I'd say a LOT of them gave VERY solid reasons.

[da_2pacalypse]

I wont lie, I've been looking forward to D3 for a very long time. the game itself is solid, but there is no denying that they've dumbed down the game quite a lot. There is not skill or leveling system here, it's just an automatic upgrade which I'm not fan of...

Anyways, the servers are the main issues here, There is no excuse for the servers going down 3 times on opening day, specially considering that the game was in beta for longer than 6 months

Yes, the metacritic reviews are exaggerated, but what else did you expect? It's the internet!

[KozmoOchez]

if you can't get past the login screen, then you can't rate the game...because you haven't played it. Let's get real people, who didn't foresee this happening even in the slightest?

[ChrisW]

It happens on a lot of games... especially smartphone games. "Crashes all the time. Garbage!" People who write such reviews are normally simple minded teenagers.

[Coffin87]

The problem is the "downtime", error 37.
Some people decided to boycott a single player game that.. you.. cannot play because the servers for the *SINGLE* player game are offline.
I can understand this decision.

[Denethor_II]

"you.. cannot play because the servers for the *SINGLE* player game are offline.
I can understand this decision."

Well my friend, you have a simple case of pirating mother fuckers ruining it for everyone else.

[hay]

@KozmoOchez: I agree, but those people can't get to the game due to systems being part of the game. Hence part of the product they paid for prohibits them from enjoying it.

Therefore it's completely valid to put 0/10 because the game is broken for them to the point that they can't play it.

Now tell me how the DRM and mandatory log in isn't part of this product, and should be ignored in reviews when it affects the possibility of enjoying, or even trying out what you paid for?
It isn't as if the battle.net and protection is being optional and skippable. It's integrated part of the product which prohibits thousands of users from getting what they paid for.

[Gaming101]

lol seriously? who listens to the friggin user score which has been either inflated or deflated by fanboys or haters? its the only score less reliable than the actual metacritic score itself - be an individual and form your own opinion you sheep.

[ClimateKaren]

@ChrisW

Simple minded teenagers? Is that your go-to putdown or something, because I don't see the correlation between maturity and being able to enjoy games that don't work.

I suppose when you encounter a game that won't run you just go ahead and give it a proper recommendation? Please tell me you do, just to fully flesh out the moronic impression you've started to project into my mind.

[Revolver_X_]

From what I hear everyone that played the beta enjoyed it. MW3 server did the exact same thing for the entire first week of launch, then consistent server problems continued for months, and no one trolled MW3' score. This generation of gamers are egocentric dumbasses. You can disagree all day, you're probably one of them. D3 has been out for 2 days with a user base already in the millions, something an FPS will never accomplish, what do you expect from the servers. Balance issues will come into play 100% of time when you have that much of a sudden increased flow. Blizzard isnt my fav, but I know when it comes to MMO's they know what they're doing. It'll be fixed by next week.

By the way, D3 being a MMO means whoever bought the game plans to play it for a considerable amount of time. Then we have crybabies over 1 day. Obvious trolls. Ppl like SilentNegotiator are whats wrong with gaming. He spends more time commenting on N4G then actually playing games. You ppl are truly pathetic. Opinions are like @ssholes, everyone has one.

[Shadowstar]

"Let's get real people, who didn't foresee this happening even in the slightest?"

I didn't. It's Diablo 3. I played Diablo 2... damn, when I was 20. Sure, the servers were down sometimes, but hell, I could just play offline.

I don't follow the news on games like D3 since I know that nostalgia's going to make it a day 1 purchase, so I had no clue that they were screwing everyone like this.

This kind of thing has to be writ large, in bold, with caps. Maybe blinking, so that no one misses it. And those servers need to be up 24x7 for the next 20 years. Diablo is a single player game, and not being able to play it at all if B.net is down was not a part of my expectation.

[achmetha]

yeah, they need a "verified" user base that actually lends credible reviews...rather than teenagers that use it as a way to "get back" at a publisher or developer.

The time I've spent in game on Diablo III is time well spent, and frankly, the downtime on the servers is allowing me to catch a bite to eat and finish a few other things around the house.

Hopefully the next time they bring the servers back up, they stay up for a few hours...

[morganfell]

Do you realize that there are people that have yet to be able to log on? They have had the title for two days and cannot play yet? I was finally able to get on last night and then 30 minutes later we were booted. What would you have gamers do? Say something on the Blizzard forums? To what does that amount?

I find it laughable that people are defending Activision when gamers are simply treating them with the same degree of respect the publisher handed the game buyers.

Wait, I know your solution - "Just go play some other title."

If people wanted to play another title, then they would have bought another title.

The issue is that in order to prevent the far minority from illegally obtaining the game, Blizzard has carelessly punished the loyal, paying fanbase. Sorry, but that is idiotic and wholly unjustified. It's tantamount to seeing a fly on your laptop and killing it with a sledgehammer. It may accomplish the job but at what price?

I asked the question yesterday, if you bought a new car and couldn't drive it off the lot how would you react? Or a new TV that wouldn't turn on. Would you just take it home and sit it in your main media room and and say, "They'll get it working."

[achmetha]

@morganfell

how did you get all that out of me saying metacritic needs a verified user base and that my time with diablo iii has been fun when i can get online? because i'm not enraged like everyone else, means i support it? untrue, so don't put words in my mouth.

[RIPSKATEDESTROY]

i think all this "hate" is because of the downtime. i played a few hours and im loving it

[StayStatic]

Sounds about right , the German Amazon site did something similar with BF3 because it used origin even though the actual game was good.

The fact an additional service such as battlenet or origin is causing score reductions is kind of disappointing when the gameplay is solid.

[Kur0]

its also about the DRM really.

[FFXI101]

Lucky you, I'm getting error 3007. It kicks me out every few mins -.-"

[SilentNegotiator]

Well it has to WORK if a game wants a good score from me....

[Halochampian]

@silentNegotiator

Well you're suppose to finish a game before scoring it... correct? I mean people get on reviewers for not taking the time to review a game correctly and then they go out and give it a 0 when there are server problems that were foreseeable.

I knew this was going to happen so I didnt buy the game until around 9 last night and I played it for about 3 hours and enjoyed the hell out of it.

[SilentNegotiator]

@Halo

But they've already PAID for the game. And an essential part of the game is the servers. Which aren't working.

This isn't Blizzard's first game. They need to be on top of their servers if they're going to REQUIRE online connection for a SINGLE PLAYER game.

If I bought Dumbed-down-ablo 3 and it didn't work, I'd put up a 0 until they fixed it. And then I would still ABSOLUTELY consider the experience when giving it a revised score. Because it's a part of what I paid for.

And let's be honest here....nothing short of several zeros will get Blizzard's attention at all. Word of mouth (or net) is often a big part of how games do....and the message is "Fix the game or we cannot recommend this title"

[brish]

@xristo

What would you rate a game that you just bought that you couldn't play because the game servers wouldn't let you start the game?

I have no doubt that *IF* you can play the game it would score much better than zero but that's not the experience a lot of gamers are getting right now.

I think a zero rating for a game that doesn't let you get past it's log in screen is accurate. Hopefully Blizzard will fix this issue so that people who legally bought the game will be able to play it.

[Mottsy]

Agreed brish! This isn't Blizzard's first rodeo! If you release a game, and people pay their hard earned money i expect to play the game i purchased. It's like buying a new game and not being able to play it....oh wait ya . Blizzard can give whatever excuse they want, but long story short it is a 0/10 if its unplayble. Get your act together Blizzard.

[Solid_Snake37]

That's a reason to knock off a few points from your review, the fact that you can't play offline is disappointing from Blizzards part. However, doesn't justify a 0/10... Trolls

[Mottsy]

The fact we cant play at all once we bought it should be a thing of a past. But it ain't

[Cerv-Clash]

Yeah but isn't 0/10 a little drastic? Too many people act on impulse,will they really change it when they get to play?

[SeekDev]

There should be a separate review for the login screen.

[ChrisW]

I'm just wondering where in the hell the official reviews are on Metacritic!!!

[Mottsy]

@ Cerv I don't believe it is drastic. Blizzard has had this problem before, If something is on the shelf for sale, I expect to be able to play what I just bought. Its been 24 hours and i got to play maybe a hour before getting DCed and not being able to log back on.

[catfrog]

lots of these 0/10's are because the game has been unplayable for a majority.

while i believe the game isnt the log in screen and the problem will be alleviated in the near future and people should rate the game based on the actual game and not trying to log in blizzard did drop the ball here.

they should have advertised an open beta and tried to get millions of subsequent users on it at once. they could have done it, but they didnt and now the games servers cant handle the traffic on release. no ones to blame but blizzard, they should have known people would be frustrated when they couldnt play the game they bought because blizzard doesnt test their game to make sure their always on policy is feasible with their servers.

an offline mode or servers that could handle the load would have solved these problems, they didnt think it was worth it and now their game score is paying the price. i cant feel sorry for them, they knew this was a possiblity but acted inadequately to prevent it from happening.

[Nimblest-Assassin]

I got my copy... but Im waiting till the end of June to play it, so it does not get in the way of school, and gives Blizzard enough time to work out the kinks.

Got Max payne and starhawk to keep me occupied till then

[Perjoss]

People go to Metacritic for the main scores, user scores mean nothing.

Always online is only really 50% about the DRM. The main game can be played as a single player yes but you use the same character for multiplayer coop and player versus player.

Dont have internet? sorry that's too bad. Same as people complaining about games that do not support SDTV. These things hold back the industry, if devs paid too much attention to stuff like that we would still be playing black and white games in 320x240 with no multiplayer at all.

Life sucks get a f'king helmet.

[DragonKnight]

This is the stupidest comment I've seen on this subject. You are equating "always online" DRM as industry progress and it's sickening. Publishers like Activision love people like you and see you coming from miles away. It's stupidity like that that punishes legitimate players and you're for that? Unbelievable.

[iamnsuperman]

True and which is why I do not understand why publications produce stuff about the user meta critic score. It doesn't really mean anything. Most scores are either 0 or 10.

[SonyPS360]

Honestly, user scores are something I've always ignored for reasons like this.

[NastyLeftHook0]

so if your favorite game got a bad meta i guess you should never play it /s. seriosuly people hold metacritic up to a high level its ridiculous.

[kevnb]

metacritic sucks, and the users are mostly dumb kids.

[admiralthrawn87]

lol metacritic user score. Have people not figured out yet that angry fanboys rate down games that they havent even played? It happens to all the popular games. People are butthurt over the always online thing and the changes to the potions. and they're using the only method that makes them feel like they have a slight bit of power, user score on metacritic. good job, it doesnt matter at all.

[Letros]

lol cry more

[-MD-]

My thoughts exactly.

[Mottsy]

Your "one" thought XD

[memphis2]

even with a multi-billion company they can't handle this many people to login. crazy. you would think blizzard would have a bigger plan for the launch.

[MRMagoo123]

blizz are never ready it was the same with all the wow expacs too crashes and server shutdowns then massive latency all day for about a week.

[Perkel]

problem is their DR policy. Only online. So servers don't work then i can't play. D2 had single player and whe n servers where to busy i just played single player

[adamant715]

It's okay for them to do it to Mass Effect 3 yet it's totally horrible for this game? Wtf? So much hypocrisy

gtfo. please.

[shackdaddy]

Who said it was ok to do it to ME3?

[adamant715]

Nobody did. But nobody made a big deal of it either.

[scotchmouth]

lol what? nice logic adamant

[MidnytRain]

Your first mistake was assuming the people here are the same people who criticized ME3; this website has many users.

[Veni Vidi Vici]

While I agree that giving games that low of a score is stupid, people have a legitimate gripe with this game. Blizzard/Activision shouldn't have required people to be logged into their servers just to play the single player game. There are a ton of reasons not to do this but they did it anyways as their way of implementing a form of DRM. So yet again, people that buy the game are screwed over.

Blizzard shouldn't have done it this way and they SHOULD be called out on it. The scores may not directly reflect the quality of the game but it certainly reflects how the game was implemented by Bliz/Act.

[STONEY4]

It was also done with Starcraft 2, which was about 2 years ago. I'm completely against the idea, but I don't get why people are surprised when the announcement about this happened a long time ago.

I guess it wasn't such a huge deal with Starcraft 2 though since 99% of most people's time with that was in multiplayer anyways.

[thereapersson]

Exactly. I'm sure that Diablo III is a good game, and that it deserves to be played by everyone who enjoyed the first two. However, the DRM nonsense, coupled with the fact that you can't play your friends on a home network, makes me see those low scores and not even question why they are there. ActiBlizzard can go F themselves. I really want to play this game but I'm not going to support the actions of a company who punishes every one of its customers as though they are pirates.

I remember the developer of The Witcher 2 stating in an interview that they don't believe in DRM - notably this type of DRM - due to the blanket criminalization of their customers. That's why I bought TW2 without hesitation. Imagine, a thoughtful developer that cares...

[Dr Face Doctor]

I somewhat dislike a particular aspect of Metacritic so it gets a 0/10 from me.

[Breadcrab]

This happens with pretty much every major release these days due to an overflow of trolls, fanboys, and complete morons. I'm waiting for the day when Half-life 3 comes out and it gets a 3.1 average user score on Metacritic.

[shackdaddy]

Lot of ADD kids who can't wait less than a day for servers to go back up...

Game is really fun if anyone wants my opinion. Very Diabloy.

[Imalwaysright]

Why the fuck should they wait? They bought it day 1 so they obviously wanted to play the game day 1, right? Why shouldnt they be able to play the game day 1? These scores arent a reflection of the quality of the game. Theyre aimed at Blizzard and how things were handled. I thought this much was obvious and Blizzard does indeed deserve a 0/10.

[Drekken]

Chill out... It sucks... Blizzard is stupid for this. I am not going to argue that. But D2 is still being played to this day…. One day isn’t going to make or break this game. All of you cry babies marking this game down is just hurting the longevity of the game. People are going to see your entitled whiney reviews and stay away.

I played all last night and got to level 17 or 18… The game is fun. Real fun. So in short, be patient and it will pay off. I am not happy it wasn’t smooth sailing, but what online only game is one the first day? Especially one as popular as a Blizzard game.

[nutcrackr]

The user score is meaningless

[Hufandpuf]

0/10 because I can't play it.

After playing it.

OMG it's the best game evar! Yay, blizzard is the best.

^the average Internet troll.

[Vlaitor]

@Hufandpuf
I have read a couple of those reviews and yes a lot of them are basicaly raged reviews concerning the connections issues. However,some have entirely detailed why the game wasn't good.
I don't tink the game deserve a perfect 10, but I don't think it deserve a 0 either.

The complains about the game aside the connections are:
-Less skills
-Auction House
-No customisation
-Point and click gameplay
-No more attribute
-Boring storyline
-2005 Graphics
-Bad voice acting

I didn't play the game yet but I must admit that it scares me a bit :S.

Sorry for my englishness

[SonyNGP]

-Point and click gameplay

Whoever complained about that does not deserve to play Diablo. Or anything similar for that matter.

[Hufandpuf]

I havent play any Diablo game, but isn't customizing your character the point of the game?

[Vlaitor]

Well I'm not quite sure myself haha...
I have played DiabloII a while ago and aside the skill tree/atributes there wasn't much really. It was ages ago thou.. :)

[Cyb3r]

I think its a great game I have been playing it for hours now and it keeps getting better as I progress, 0/10?? WTF were they smoking

[GraveLord]

This is why cloud gaming will never take off.

Servers offline, no single-player games? NO THANK YOU!

[Blastoise]

Metacritic means nothing anymore, as most reviews mean nothing anymore.

Heres evidence
http://www.metacritic.com/g...

[noctrnl13]

I halfway agree with you. I wouldn't have given skyrim a perfect score but I wouldn't have given it a 0 like some of those idiots.

Metacritic is an monument to internet stupidity.

[xXxSeTTriPxXx]

it's diablo *heres your free pass*

[noctrnl13]

It's just misguided anger. I see where it could come from though, but I hardly doubt it's going to change anything. Blizzard already cashed in on the pre-orders.

Although how they made all this money and stress tested their servers and still allowed this to happen is beyond me.

Ah well everything can't be perfect I would hope the Metacritic whiners would nut-up and not trash the review on an already biased and overlooked site. If you must show your distaste write a strongly worded e-mail or something, Devs could hardly care about reviews, sales is what talks.

Although considering the game was supposed to come out three years you think Blizz would have had enough time beefing up their server capacity. Must've been all those prositutes and blow they got with the pre-order money.

[PirateThom]

Why is it not worth 0/10? If you can't play the game, the game you've paid for, even in single player mode because of DRM, why should the game get a free pass?

Games have been crucified for a lot less. Diablo and Blizzard/Activision shouldn't get a free pass here.

[hazelamy]

i agree absolutely, this isn't like rating mass effect 3 down because you didn't like the ending.

this is a game that was rendered totally unplayable.
and i don't mean it played badly, i mean it would not run at all.

when that happens because of something the developers decided to do with the game then too damn right it should get a zero.

[scotchmouth]

Exactly. It's interesting that people say "it's just trolling" when an unplayable game is a legit reason for a low score or even no score.

If people pay hard earned money for something it should work as advertised. It is unacceptable to release a product that doesn't work and the user score reflects that.

Does metacritic have it's share of trolling? Yes. Does that mean all situations of a 0 mean trolling? No. While issues remain this is legit.

[Kran]

Of course.

See, I was patient enough. Now that everybody has gone to bed or gone to work, I now have pretty much a full day to play it now :)

And what I have played has been amazing. Definitely my score would be between 8-10. Where? Not sure yet :)

[Derpy]

When ever DRM interferes with the gamers' enjoyment of a game, then the game deserves a bad review. It's a shame really because honest gamers who put their hard earned money into a game are not the ones who should be getting punished for the actions of criminals.

Those who are calling gamers who are unhappy with not being able to play a game they paid for immature are the real immature ones. Just because you can play when they can't doesn't mean they should be happy about it.

[StayStatic]

Oh to hell with meta critic and rotten tomatoes while I'm at it :P

[KUV1977]

http://venturebeat.files.wo...

The login problems are annoying and I too think that a lot of the good old stuff has been abandoned, but still it is a really great game.

[Les-Grossman]

I would be annoyed if I could not even play the Single Player

[BuckyBarnes]

How often did people play single player diablo 2? Not very often, unless you didnt have a reliable internet connection, which past a decade ago, is very likely. I only played online, ive been playing blizzard games online since warcraft 2 battle.net. People need to either realiE this is a very popular game, huge amounts of people are logging on at once. This creates all sorts of issues regardless of how prepared you are before launch. "oh they nee to plan for more users!" is the battle cry, well guess what, they plan for a MASSIVE amount people to log on launch day, and that number always gets shattered. Unless you are a network programmer, and can solve something faster than a group of programmers, stfu and stop complaining.

[pr0digyZA]

The Funny thing is people are hating on this game for no reason, I can understand certain people who are angry that they can't get on. But one review I read said "this is the worst first person shooter I have ever played". I'm really enjoying it, I've been lucky enough not to experience any issues at all but can image the frustration if you are.

[JRoyale]

Servers are often messed up at the launch of a big title. Console gamers are just used to it(Homefront, BF3). People just need to calm down and ignore metacritic.

[capcock]

That's because people are mad because the servers don't work which is what u should expect since it's blizzard and it is like this every time they release somthing which is why I didn't buy diablo 3 day one.

you can't even review a game like diablo 3 day 1 unless you're a retard since it takes more than freaking 24 hours to beat and experience it.

[Canary]

Does anyone actually go to metacritic for qualitative game reviews? Really?

I see it as more of a resource to gauge how consumers react to various aspects of a given product. When you see this kind of massive negative feedback, it's very indicative of a developer doing something really, really WRONG.

Diablo III is getting blasted for having godawful DRM.This is a very valid point, and this kind of "controversy" is really the best way to make the general displeasure of the consumers known.

See similar metacritic outrage regarding Mass Effect 3's endings, or Dragon Age 2's two environments.

The point is not (now) for users to qualitatively and accurately judge a game by its own merits, but rather for a consumer base to use the scoring system to (manufacture) controversy to hilight some of the worst ideas implemented in gaming today.

No, Diablo 3 does not merit a 3.6/10 aggregate. But this is still a GOOD thing.

[bednet]

it would be interesting to see how many sales they lost because of their DRM caused issue (I certainly will not be buying the game anytime soon as was planned) versus the "real" lost sales due to pirating...we all know the game will be cracked (if not already) in a matter of days/weeks.

How many gamers that would have bought the game will just get the "always available/fixed" pirated copy?

This is Spores all over again.

[Fatty]

I never read Metacritic's user reviews for real advice. They're usually the internet equivalent of a wet fart.

But wet farts CAN be amusing, so at least there's that.

[BrianC6234]

Does anyone really care about user scores on Metacritic? I don't. People post low scores before games even come out. Ignore those scores. And big deal if a PC game doesn't work. That's normal.