Given that this seems to be a Mario Party game without Mario, I think those scores are just right.

Reviews didn't really matter for Wii Party. Why would it matter for its sequel...?

"In what scenario could a giraffe outrun a rhino?"

Well, since the giraffe is the generally the faster animal in real life, I'm going to go with "most scenarios" as my answer.

On topic, I don't think Wii Party U is going to generate much hype for the Wii U. It's going to be a game you might buy if you already have a Wii U but I don't see it sending people running to the stores.

scores dont really matter, Wii Series games usually dont get good scores anyway

I'll be honest, I can't work out why people thought this game would be any sort of system seller or even help the Wii U in any real way. People bought the first version because you effectively got the game for $10 once you took out the value of the controller. But given the install base of the Wii, there are now bucketloads of Wii Motion plus controllers out there, and many Wii U owners already own a Wii so the subsidised controller pull isn't there anymore. Is there something I'm failing to see here?

...hope?

Proper context:

Wii Party (2010): 68/100 metacritic

Mario Party 9 (2012): 73/100 metacritic

Mario Party 8 (2007): 62/100 metacritic

It's a party game... and it's scored about the average that Nintendo-made party games score. Not seeing the reason for either surprise or disappointment.

How many of you, or how many of our casual-gamer family members know/care about review scores for party games? It's all about fun with other people. The people playing the game with you determine the level of fun. The game is merely the tool, or the jumping-off point.

Just on a personal note, I'm seriously considering purchasing the game over the holidays.  The tipping point in the decision to purchase and not ignore, was the inclusion of the Wii Remote Plus.  I only have one... my other three are regular Wii Remotes.  I'd like another one, and this game looks pretty fun.  Why not?

I never expect much from the "free controller" games. Its pretty much you get what you pay for.

Well, I really enjoyed Wii party. It was great fun with the right people. And this sounds like more of the same, which is exactly what I wanted. So...looks like this is a nice little Christmas present sorted!

Is because nobody expects big scores for this kind of games, people buy it anyway because is fun, so the final score does not matters as much, while on games like Batman, Zelda, and others, people that are not already fans of the game will give it a try if the score is very good.