I just think it implies that Halo needs to redefine more. Gamereactor that gave Halo 1-3 a 10/10 gave Halo 4 a 9 saying despite being great, it needs to innovate/surprise people and he felt 343 played it safe.

90 meta is great. Sure compared to like all of the 360 titles, its the lowest. It had too much hype i believe too since the year was a bit lackluster. People mightve expected more. I know I predicted like 93-96.

Anyhow this whole "its the best halo" or "a 90 now is 96 a few years back" is a bit too much. How about we wait until we played it? Best halo is very possible but ive never truly been a big fan like most here. As for critics being harsh: we had like 2 games get 96 last year! Anyway, i think it can hold 90-91. Damn shame if it drops to 89 lol. I know its "just a number" but still.

Currently at 90. Now im nervous. Now we got thousands of PS fans waiting on the edge of their seats....ready to pounce when they see a 89......

It deserves at least 90, which isnt too big a hope given the franchise pedigree

Moderated,

-Mr Khan

The best SP campaign this gen so far for me FPS wise is R3..followed by COD4. think Reach would be 3rd. I will definitely play this sooner or later to check out the SP. The new enemy designs intrigue me

A lot of people just expected too much from Halo 4, still it won't go below 90% which is a great score. A lot of games are being more harshly criticised this year but it doesn't seem unfair, reading some reviews on AC3 or RE6 justify their mixed/bad scores and what's hard to believe about Mass Effect 3 being the most acclaimed game this year? A vocal bunch of fans hated the original endings but most people think the game as a whole is brilliant. It's my personal GOTY, which might not mean much since this is the worst year this generation in my opinion.

I don't think you need to do something revolutionary to achieve a really high average, if a game's truly good it will score very well. God of War: Ascension will probably score over 92% due to the fact God of War III did and the new game is going to be improved in every aspect, new multiplayer component to shut up critics crying for replayabilty and by the time of release it will be 3 years since the last entry so it'll feel fresh. Gears of War: Judgement definitely won't as Gears of War 3 couldn't, it's from a different developer and it's releasing too soon which some critics will complain about. Beyond: Two souls probably won't either as it'll have some critics slating it for being more a movie than a game like what happened with Heavy Rain. The Last of Us probably won't either as Uncharted 3 couldn't and people's expectations are way too high for the game, unless it is virtually flawless (which is unlikely) people are going to be disappointed. 

Regardless of how harshly or not the games are reviewed next year I do believe 2013 will be the best and last year of this console generation, so many guaranteed to be brilliant classics are coming.

You were overhyping it more than anyone lol. Most halo fans, like myself were more realistic say 90-93 at most. This is the 4th installment in a franchise, how many games in there 4th continuely go up in score? I'm just excited to play the game and I could give a rats ass if t score 90 or 98.     

Cortana's updates, suggestions, and information have always been one of my favorite aspects of the Halo games. It was very disapointed that she was absent for 3/4 of Halo 3's missions. I'm looking forward to more Cortana and I hear that because her AI is degrading she causes trouble for the Chief. Sounds like a great twist and I can't wait.

Well, I am so disappointed at this 90 that I am jumping ship on the Halo series. Who is with me!???!!? Eh?

if 343 didnt played safe and had done some crazy things people would still complain that they should have played safe.

Nobody understands reviwers they are just some weird people.

With all due respect, Your Majesty, that's a load of BS.

Sending out swag and free review copies is common in all media. Film studios send out free review DVDs weeks or months before the film releases along with information packs and swag. The same is true for books. There's no contract or promise of high review scores.

Back in 2002 I went to E3 representing my own made up website. Some of the booths made you give them your business card to collect their press kit. I handed my fake business cards all over the place. For years after that I'd receive free review copies of games because those publishers thought my website was legitimate. I sent them all back, because while I'll lie to get into E3 I would feel like stealing if I kept the games they sent based on a false pretense. But my point is that none of them came with a check and instructions for a high score. They didn't even come with a letter saying that if my score was low they'd stop sending stuff.

As for the fact that devs sometimes get bonuses for high metacritic scores. Yeah so. That's good business. It's a policy to help ensure quality output. Those post review bonuses have no effect direct influence on the reviews. There is NO evidence that reviewers are paid off to give high scores. None. If it were true there would be whistle blowers everywhere. No company can get away with that kind of dishonesty for long, especially the big ones.

I'm tired of people accusing reviewers of taking bribes. It happens every time a high profile game gets a high score or a low score. Reviewers give their opinion, but their opinion isn't unbiased. Greg Miller is such a Sony fanboy he can't say anything bad about Sony games. That doesn't mean he's in Sony's pocket, it just means he's a fanboy. The IGN Halo 4 reviewer is a Halo fan and he thinks it's the best Halo yet. As a Halo fan and based on what I've seen and read it looks like he might be right. Based on what I've read of the minor complaints of Halo 4, if I were him I would have had a hard time not giving the game a perfect 10. I can assure you I'm not receiving any incentives from MS.

And now people will start to yell and curse because the metascore is "low"... What has this generation done to us as gamers? A domestic site gave it 4/6 (Pressfire.no) and the commentary field below is littered with enraged fans shouting how useless the reviewer is and citing the many high scores it has gotten from the largest mainstream sites (who mostly aren't aware that there are scores below 9.5 for blockbuster titles) rather than read the review and respond to his criticism in a productive manner.

And this has happened so many times this generation with many games across all platforms. Why do people care so damn much about metacritic scores?! A lot of my favorite games have "poor" metascores, all the way down to 85 and even lower, I should really start complaining loudly about it since I feel that they deserve more. I could understand the ruckass if we were talking about a surprising 75/100 metascore, but this is the upper 10th percentile we're talking about here, waaaaay into elite territory. If 90 is "harsh" nowadays, I don't think I can ever take metascores seriously at all any more.

Keep playing your favorite games and enjoy them and stop obsessing over what others think of said games.