i've seen a lot of people being too critical about games and expect really too much out of them , people on the forums either buy a game just to review it or find "Whats so good about this that made people like it" and then come out disapointed, whats really sad as well is that people became very very critical on games nowadays which lead to a lot of people being all "man games used to be sooo good in my days" and whine about it, its not really true , its you who changed the way you play your games, you used to play games without knowing ANYTHING about them , and without any influnce of fanboys on the forums or the fans who say "its the best game ever!! because of blah blah"  so i thought i'd share with you guys some of the things you should do to ENJOY playing games

• Never Play a Game just to see whats so good about it, because you WILL be disappointed.
• try to avoid reviews and spoilers all together, that way you will be surprised of the storyline or the level design
• do NOT spend a lot of times looking for "New Info" , that way you won't get bored of the game's features
• try avoiding forum-goers and other gamers ,believe me, they're going to whine about stuff you'll never notice when playing games.
• Never play a game just to review it, because when you review a game, its a normal thing that you are looking for the negatives rather than actually enjoying the experience
• Do not play mutliple games at once, you will lose track of the storyline and will lose the sense of immersion
• Do not multitask when playing a game, it will be dull and you'll get bored fast (for example don't go on forums while playing games)
• try to avoid coop online play when you first get the game, for example, play Halo Reach on single player at first then after finishing it , play Online , because most of the times the other people playing will for example, skip cutscenes, finish the level for you, will slow you down, or will do retarded things to get achievements or trophies, that all will make you feel underwhelmed with the campaign.
• Try avoiding fans , they will recommend you a game just because its made by a certain developer.
• play the games that YOU want to play, for example you want to play a JRPG but the reviews were harsh about it , you give them the finger and play it and enjoy it.
• Be open minded, just because the game is in a certain genre don't be like "Ahhh its an FPS the storyline is going to suck , i'll be playing it with my finger stuck on my nose" but rather "its an FPS, it will be an interesting experience!" try it ! its not hard! 
• Do not play a game just for completion sake!, try avoiding trophies or achievement hunting  all together on your first playthrough.
• if you don't enjoy it ,then give it a better shot, if you still don't enjoy it then its not the game that suck, its just not for you.

but if i did that then i would never have played Shadow of the Colossus or Psychonauts.   I do apply to this to all wii games from now on, since ive had too many problems, but other systems ive still got a decent ratio going for good:bad games based on it.

If all else fails... game disks always come with a hole...

I don't like the idea, implied by your last bullet point, that there's no such thing as a bad game.

is it that bad? i've played a bit of it before owning a 360 and it was fine, but now i have a 360 i can't get past the "Matchmaking" screen , it keeps telling me that its searching for players.

You lose me everytime when you bitch about reviews.

Great games generally get great reviews. I rarely recommend a game critics pan.

well as a game reviewer who has like 5 games left to review this month i dont think I can abide by those rules...