The single player content is weak and the multiplayer is not always accessible due to the nature of handhelds (wifi access) so yeah, I think the score is fair overall.

Maybe the OP should eloborate on why exactly the game should get a higher score. "Reviewers are wrong because I love the game" is a pretty weak point to make. I like Dynasty Warriors games and they get reviewed poorly all the time but I also can acknowledge the fact that different people have different tastes.

And lol at user reviews. Just let me quickly drop a 0 on metacritic to get my point accross here.

Absolutely blown away by KillZone: Mercenary, it's far far better than I was expecting! Great story, engaging gameplay mechanics and a technical marvel. Why it's being compared against the biggest budget blockbuster home console FPS games however I'll never know.

Resident Evil Revelations was never marked down for the compromises that had to be made trying to squeeze it onto the 3DS.

Why should the game not be compared to console FPS games? Does the smaller screen limit originality, creativity and level design? This isn't the age of the GBA anymore, Vita games can look damn good (as proven by this game) and there is really nothing holding it back. What I read in reviews was that while this is a good game, its not special or remarkable, its just going through the motions and as such, a 77% is right about where it should be on the current review scale.

Also, user reviews mean nothing. You proved it yourself when you said that that atrocious CoD Vita game got a 4/5 from users.

EDIT: @MikeRox: did you read RE: Revelations reviews? the most common complaints were the controls (single analog) and the fact that the campaign was fragmented (to make it more accessible for handhelds). So yeah, it did get marked down for being on a handheld and for good reason.

I think graphics are the only area in which review scores should be scaled to the console btw

I've mentioned this in several threads.  It wasn't until it came to consoles that there have been more and more people that have also been saying it's not a very good game.  On the 3DS, other than the copy I have, it's apparently the most amazing shooter ever.

Why don't you read the reviews for the console version of the game..  There are a lot of reviews that actually point out the games flaws rather than glossing over them like all the 3DS reviews do.

?? Because a handheld uses wifi the game score should drop? That makes no sense, sorry , everything you said is hog wash and clearly comes from someone who never played the game. The SP is full of content BTW. There is more to it then the SP campaign, challenges, Intel.....

Anopther one who states assumptions as fact yet has never played the game........................ The game is a lot betetr the "Going throgh the motions". Did you read the thread, it is as good as console fps, the only difference is the graphical and scope differences because its ona  handheld. Mercenary is better then KZ3 imo.

77 is not right at all for a genre pushing game for its platform...another example of handhelds and especially vita not getting the credit it deserves.

I was in the Beta and the wifi part was not what I was saying, like, at all. 

Not sure how complaining about 3DS games receiving better reviews will change anything about Killzone Mercenary's score. Anyway, it's a similar situation to post-2012 Wii game reviews, where gaming journalists scored the games lower because graphics weren't comparable to PS3/360(Xenoblade, Pandora's Tower, The Last Story) despite the general quality of the games and the simple fact that Wii's hardware couldn't output better graphics. You are talking like this is some exclusive PS Vita hate, but it isn't. The mainstream gaming media sucks, the best way to deal with them is to ignore their existance.

I usually (not always) find user review average to be better representative of the quality of a game than the site review average.

A keen eye for gameplay videos tends to garner the most weight in judging if I will get a game, but as far as discovery goes, I go down the list based on descending order of average user review scores.

And even considering all of that, I still like Gamerankings.com better than Metacritic.com

Xenoblade is sitting with a 92 on Metacritic and I've never seen a review that has complained about its graphics.