It's good as a general rule of thumb, and also good to view the general opinion of the gaming community. Reviewers are gamers, just like us, except that they hide their biases behind claims to journalistic integrity
Obviously there is never going to be universal consensus, like those heretics who complain about how bad looking Ocarina of Time is (yeah, they're out there), or the people who hate on GTAIV for reasons ranging from rational to off-the-wall and back again. This lack of consensus weakens those who bandy about metacritic averages in an effort to show which console is best, but its still good for a rule of thumb.
I will be upfront about the fact that as a Nintendo fanboy who has become more and more at odds with consensus of "Gaming Journalists," i have developed inherent biases against the whole system, but there is definitely some merit to it. It's just not the end-all that some people try and make it out to be, particularly the *ahem* "Game Journalists"
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
