Total War: Rome 2 Controversy Spotlights The Poor Integrity Of Game Reviews

Gaming Blend "Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later right? When you screw gamers over and bleed them from the inside out, leaving a gaping hole of desperation, anger and shame staring back at everyone unfortunate enough to see the victimized core gamer bent over and ravaged on the ground, the only thing you can expect to come out of such a thing is an army of pitchforks and torches."

[Master-H]

What a shame, i watched the Angry Joe review of this game, this is why i trust Metacritic's users' score more than critics' score.

[cyguration]

Not sure why you got disagrees, but user scores are at least honest. You don't have to worry about them rushing through the game and posting BS scores.

[starchild]

User scores are filled with people who are not honest at all. Fanboys, @ssholes that just want to rile, people with biases and bones to pick...user reviews are plagued with these types. Nope, I don't put any stock in user scores.

Any fanboy can write a review score. I don't automatically trust journalists' review scores either, but at least they have a reputation to uphold and aren't hiding behind anonymity.

I always try to get as much information about a game as I can based on developer interviews and videos. Then, if possible I will try to play the game myself through a demo or a loan or something.

Next, I will read reviews on game sites and in magazines and try to read between the lines and get a feel for what the game is really like.

The absolute LAST thing I put any stock into are user reviews. Gaming is filled with fanboys and morons with various biases and axes to grind.

I value the opinions of friends whose judgement I trust or the opinions of reviewers that have a very good track record with me, but the opinions of random anonymous fanboys on the internet are next to worthless to me.

[cyguration]

@starchild

There may be angry fanboys and biased axe grinders, but for the ones that aren't trolling there are a lot of honest opinions there of people who actually paid for the game and not people who were given the game for free.

[aliengmr]

They're "honestly" stupid and not better in anyway to critic reviews.

[Master-H]

Disagree all you want but the user score is most of the times more accurate than the critic's score, at least in my opinion , sure there are some trolls and fanboys who down rate games but at the end they usually cancel each other out, just add a 1 or a 0.5 and you usually get the right score of the game, unless it's too buggy or has something that pissed off the fans then expect below 5 scores lol

[starchild]

Not in my opinion. There aren't just "some" trolls and fanboys, there are a massive amount of trolls and fanboys. Gaming is sadly plagued with such people.

I look at a lot of the games I like and I compare the user review average and the critic average and 9 times out of 10 I agree more with the average from the critics.

Here are some examples:

Dead Space 3 -> Critic 78 / Users 5.9
What a f*cking joke. Even the critic average is too low in my opinion, but it's reasonable. The 5.9 is a sad joke of a score for such a great game.

AC3 -> Critic 80 / Users 6.0
Again my opinion is much more in line with the critics.

Splinter Cell Blacklist -> Critic 83 / Users 7.3
I would give Blacklist a 9.3 as it is simply one of the best stealth games I have ever played. The user average is way too low.

Castlevania Lords of Shadow -> Critics 82 / Users 7.0
Sad. CLOS is one of the best games I have played all generation. The critic average is at least closer to my opinion of the game. If I went by the user average I would think the game was fairly average to decent, not the masterpiece that it is in my eyes.

There are a rare few times that I will agree more with the user review average than the critics average, but by and large the users reviews are unreliable and often cringe worthy.

Gaming is filled with whinny, entitled, juvenile people. There are a lot of really cool and levelheaded gamers I have met as well, but sadly there are a whole lot of the whinny entitled type.

[Master-H]

Well my opinion differs Starchild, like i said i just add the user score 1 out of ten and it usually aligns with my personal rating, like AC3 for example (because it is the only one i played from what you listed) , i would give it a 7, it was dull and very boring, and felt more glitchy than average for an AC game, also half the game felt like a tutorial.
and that 6 for Dead Space is probably from DS fans who want the horror from the first two games back not trolls but i haven't played the game myself so i can't rate it.