For example look it Killzone 2 it has a Metascore of 91.Killzone 3 is better and has only 84.Maybe now a lot of incredible games have been release and the criteria is higher but I think it's stupid.Another example LBP has a 95 Metascore and LBP2 has all of the content of 1 plus more but has a 91.FIFA 11 has 89 and fifa 10 has 91.FIFA 11 has all the previous features from FIFA 10 plus more.WTF?

If you don't take into account the changing standards then nearly every sequel would have to score higher than the last game and suddenly the 7-10 scale people seem to usually hate so much is now a 8-10 or 9-10 scale. Review scores have to be at least partially based on a comparison between the game you are reviewing and the overall environment/standards set by other games. LBP was more exceptional for it's time than LBP2 in many reviewers' eyes, and I can see why they'd think that even though I scored the second higher iirc..

Reviewers seem to have gotten much stricter with their scores in the past year.

I understand how changing standards would change a reviewers opinion, but I think it's a little rediculous. It seems that some sequels get scocred too heavily based on expectations and standards. I personally think it's a little unfair and misleading.

Games often get high scores when they bring something new and good to the table. LBP for example:  before it's release, there wasn't a single game out on current-gen consoles like it so when it was out there, everyone was shocked and amazed, then it ended up getting high scores. LBP2 comes out and ends up improving just about every part of the game along with adding an insane amount of tools for map creation. What happens then? Though it's undoubtedly the better game, we've seen the concept already and the "wow" factor isn't there anymore. The result:  it scores lower, even though it's a much better and improved game.

Does that sound right? Put yourself in the shoes of someone just browsing around for good games judging by metacritic scores. He sees LBP1 and LBP2. He's never played either but notices that LBP2 scored a little lower, even though it has MUCH more content and variety. What's he supposed to think? Chances are he might think that, for reasons he doesn't know of,  LBP1 is probably the better game between the two.

What about Call of Duty? MW2 vs. BO. Between the two, BO has much more features, brought back zombie mode, removed the op vehicles that ruined some of WaW's maps, and has way less bugs/exploits/imbalances than MW2.....but MW2 scores higher? Makes no sense to me.

Sequels are getting lower scores even when they improve the previous games. What happens when you increase the score though? All the sudden, you have a barrage of games scoring 90+ and now you can't tell which games are good and which are bad because everything is rated high. This is a mistake that's happened because of reviewers being too generous. It's too late to try and fix the mistake now though because if they all decided they're gonna start being more harsh, were gonna have tons of years-old games that somehow have higher scores than newer and more recent improved games.

The rating system for video games is just stupidly broken beyond repair compared to ratings for films. Game reviewers nowadays for the most part arn't anymore "professional" than a frequent gamer in terms of judgding whether a game is good or bad. As or late, I've been ignoring game scores more than I used to, and I think I was a fool to listen to what most reviewers had to say in the first place.

The best way to judge a game before you buy is by actually reading reviews, instead of looking at scores. Even this is tedious though, mostly because some reviewers tend to use all this unnecessary language to talk about a game and end up making articles drag on longer than they should be. I especially hate it when we get games like Killzone 2/3 and you have to read through multiple paragraphs saying "GOOD GRAPHICS!" being repeated many times in several different ways.

In the long run, I think in short, it's safe to say that sequels are scored based on expectations, rather than overall quality and improvements.

A large (and in my opinion deserved) aspect of any review is originality. LBP was original, the amount of emphasis it placed on UGC was new. LBP2, while a better game, was not particularly groundbreaking and as such gets a lower score.

You have to keep in mind that reviews are not on a static and objective scale, what score a game would get often (though in the cases of exceptionally good or bad games not always) changes over time.

Reviewers are without a doubt more stricter in the 7th gen than they were in the 6th. Just compare the metacritic high scores of 7th gen platforms with their 6th gen counterparts. I haven't noticed a change during the 7th gen, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was one.

its good if reviewers are getting stricter, it's why i'm starting to trust reviewers a bit more now. Although on some things there still too positive, just look at the assassins creed games, I'm not saying there bad games but they are pretty much the same game everytime, yet they all seem to get amazing reviews

Now again look at Resistance 3 and Rage.How low there are scoring-83 and 80.I doubt that the first two Resistance games who scored around 90 were better than Resistance 3.That confuses people... If they just wanna buy one Resitance game they would buy the first, because it has the highest review score?

Indeed, standards change. When it was released, goldeneye for the N64 had incredible graphics, innovation and controls. If a similar game was released now, it would be reviewed terribly.

Bingo.  Another factor is around now in a gen the reviewers and their readers start to acknowledge the "extra points" early titles got and how the scores are starting to look a little suspect now and you see more and more reviewers being a little harsher and aiming to look less "starry eyed" in their reviews for big titles.

TBH my advice is never, ever look at the scores.  The scores are meaningless and a horribly coarse attempt to simplify a detailed opionion down to something "bite sized".  If you are at all interested in reviews read the words, gaugue their truth, look for consistent good/bad references across multiple reviews and judge based on those.

Even better, trust your own taste/opionions based on previews, demos and knowledge of gameplay preferences.