I cannot really speak for anyone else, so I will speak for me. YES. I agree. I go way too much on what other people think about games when I buy them.
There's also another side to this. When we BOUGHT the game, and PLAYED it, we (me again, but I think this is a general point) want confirmation that our choice was the right one.
I remember playing through portal and loving every single second of it. Afterwards I went out and read as many reviews of it as I possibly could, just so that I could confirm that my belief that portal was the best game I played this year was socially acceptable. That and I loved replaying the game in my head.
Call me shallow and weak, but if enough people state that a game is bad, or average, I start to believe them. If people I trust say a game is awesome, I tend to think so too.
Case in point here for me is MGS2. It was hyped, had great scores, and I played it with a friend. It was really too drawn out for my taste, and all the videos and codec convos made me.... want to PLAY! I kept playing and told myself over and over again how good this game was. I almost believed it. Haven't touched it since and just the thought of sitting through all those hours of story makes my stomach turn.
... now just because I'm probably going to get flamed for that, I'm only saying that I didn't enjoy the game, and I tried telling myself I did just because it got good reviews, not that it didn't deserve the reviews.
So yeah, this is a problem for me, but it's not at all a problem limited to gaming. I act similarly to this in other situations too.
Reviews are good, because they give you a sense of what to expect from a game. Sites like Gamerankings or Metacritic are more used for affirming your beliefs, and telling you what beliefs are socially acceptable than actually give you guidance on what to buy.
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