Metacritic is only "bad" if one allows it to affect their judgment. For example, writing off a game below a set aggregate numerical valuation seems bizarre to me and creates a myopic group think mentality.

Many games are simply different and fall into niche interests. I have had a great deal of fun with games, then later checked the Metacritic (mainly due to this site where people seem to care more about that site than anywhere else I have been) and find they fall well below 90, 80, or even 70.

At this stage in my life, I know my tastes. I know by looking at videos and playing a demo if an experience appeals to me. I honestly never considered any game as "I enjoyed that to an 83% satisfaction". It is far simpler; "I love it, like, felt indifferent, didn't care for it, found no redeeming qualities".

The problem with metacritic is that if the game is Ultra mega super good and receive universal acclaim(AKA 9s and 10s) the biased sites(like polygon) can't hurt the game metascore but when the game is just "good", the polygon and adam sessler's kind of sites can actually hurt the metascore bigtime with their 5/10 which put the game on the "7x zone" which for most people,unfortunately, means " it's crap i will buy when cost $5 or wait for PS+/gold free".

Art, music and even movies can contribut to your individual growth as a human being and appreciation of culture. I guess gaming as an experience can contribute to ones development as well if it is enjoyed occasionally, but video games tend to trigger very addictive attributes in people. Gaming every day, talking about gaming, blogging, recodring themselves while gaming, watching others while gaming... Doing anything too much is detremental.

As far as gamification methods utilized in the workforce, I really doubt any of those concepts are benefitting people who spend 2+ hours per day gaming... People who has spent few hours with Angry Birds and played a game of tag should be able to grasp the concept of working based on incentives and using points and leveling up to mask workflow in to a game. 

I prefer written reviews that don't come with a score, like Kotaku's reviews. It tells me what's good and bad about the game and allows me to decide on my own whether it suits my gaming preference. When a score is attached to a review, I feel like it inevitably makes you compare it to other games, even if you're really comparing apples to oranges.

Well it go either way on how the feed back is used. If the publisher is basing pay on the Metacritic score or the possibility of a sequel then it can have a damaging effect on the industry. If they are using it as a feed back tool to help with with their post-mortum to find out what went well and what should be fixed/trashed/replaced in future games then it can have a beneficial effect. Even with the bias it can have a beneficial effects if used correctly as a feedback tool and not a be all end all on how well the game did.

No cause I need it for quickly viewing how a game is rated and for comparison's sake...

I have used it once for Rome 2, to see about the bugs and performance overall, and wanted to get a feel before I pulled the trigger and bought it. I ended up waiting a few months to get it.

Other than that its too hard to give it much attention when so much fanboyism is prevalent throughout certain titles. I usually ignore metacritic completely.

It's just a collection of data. A tool. What we do with that info, good or bad, is up to us. Whether reviewers are credible or not, that's another story. Metacritic is just all of the reviews in one place. Nothing wrong with that. When we start just looking at reviw scores and not the content of the reviews, that's when everything goes to shit.

I personally don't pay attention to Metacritic, but it could be.

I think Metacritic is bad, and from the poll I see that the majority of people it does affect their purchase of a game. This is really sad cause a lot of you are missing out on games you probably would enjoy quite a bit. Even reviews on games are bad when people have their own criteria for what they think is worthy of a buy 9s 10s Game of the Year!!!!

If you think about some reviews, they're inconsistent. In my opinion FUN FACTOR is what is most important in a game. Some games that don't even try for a story aspect won't get marked down, yet a game that tries to flesh out some story gets marked down for not being great. Games that are single player only might get marked down for not having any multiplayer, yet games that add multiplayer that are normally stronger single player games will get marked down for how it didn't need multiplayer or it wasnt worth your time, etc.

Then there are games that seem to get these crazy high scores, that when I actually played them I didn't agree with the high scores. When Bioshock Infinite got all them high scores I was excited but when I got into it I found myself missing the fun combat of the first 2 games. While the story was great the gameplay wasn't as good as Bioshock 2 when it comes to all the options you had in combat. GTA IV and V come to mind as well. While the world they created is ambitious, when it comes to the gameplay. The driving and shooting aren't as fun as they are in games that put those mechanics first. All I'm trying to say is don't let these review scores keep you from getting into a game you think you might enjoy.