I think the bigger question is, why do people feel the need to make up excuses because a segment of reviewers had a different level of enjoyment with a particular game? Why do we come across, "I liked the game but the reviewer didn't, so they suck," when we're talking about opinions?

Most of the time, generalized attacks on reviewers are just fanboy excuses. What they're really mad about is that the game wasn't given +10 for being an exclusive on their favorite console. That's not true all the time, of course, but when a dozen reviewers are complaining about something, it's probably a valid opinion.

As for the skill question, gaming now is a lot more variable, which I think requires more skill-sets. Certainly, gamers of the NES era would likely dominate in 2D platform play that depends on timing but they'd also get their asses handed to them in RTS or anything multi-player. It's just a difference of skill-sets, which are generally based on experience levels. Overall, because of the vast amount of genres available today, modern gamers obviously have a wider array of skills, even if they aren't as generally focused.

Good call, do away with the score and list the pros and cons and let the buyer decide. Also with the scoring system a lot of people skip the review and go straight to the score, im sure that happens.

PS- I listed Wii U games because im primarily a Nintendo gamer, and those 3 games had reviews that were either glowing or downright ripped the game to shreds..very divisive. Plus having played those games i felt my comments could be more genuine.

My main issues (and this ain't only for Sonic Lost World but games in general) people follow reviewer as priest follow the 13 amendments. One guy, from a popular gaming site, opinion persuade a lot of people easily, and I feel most of those gamer could be missing out on some games just base of some guy opinion. I'm not basing reviewers, ubt I feel the system is sort of broken.

Any game that puts reviewer out of their comfort zone or an easily identifiable zone for someone else will always get poor reviews.

I don't know about them being bad at playing games but I feel like a lot of them rush through games on easy, don't pay enough attention to the story and miss a lot of things, a.k.a. collectibles, hidden areas, easter eggs etc.

The problem with game reviewers is that they arent trying to enjoy the game they just bought. They got a game for free and are saying: Now, impress me while i try to poke holes on you!

Its a completely different mindset. Most of the reviewers are not on the same psycological state as the consumer.
Say for example the Dynasty Warriors series. Reviewers hate it, say lizzards about it, say how its technicly terrible, its repetitive the AI is monotonous. The people that say that, are not trying to enjoy the game.
DW is actually and incredibly fun and strategic game. It looks amazing with all of the action on screen at once and the AI is ruthless in chaos difficulty. Not only that but the game has a great historical storyline and great ammounts of content like 70+ characters each with their own individual combos and special attacks. On top of it, you can play it all with a friend and some stages are built exactly for that when the forces spilt up in an attack. Oh and did i mention how satisfying it is to slash a bunch of enemies at once?

You get nothing of that on a reviewers view of the game. Because the game is not there to impress them, its there to entertain those who want to be entertained. And while the core basic design does not involve complex button presses, it doesnt mean it isnt incredibly fun to play and doesnt have depth to the combo system. Heck DW8 even has a parry system and an elemental system on the weapons and most press just wrote it off as awful when its an amazing game.

End of the day, the consumers state of mind and the reviewers state of mind when playing games is different and therefore their review will be written from that point of view. I have stopped taking into account commercial reviews a long time ago. So much that i can already tell when they are talking out of their rear end just to find something to complain about, or when they didnt even give the game a chance.

Nope. I think they are average or above average.

You know, I think the media is like the ultimate Rorschach test. In the end people see what they want to see on the media and its reasons. A lot of folks think it is obliged to agree with them everytime and end coming up with ludicrous reasons for when it doesn't.

Notice how those are all Wii U exclusive titles that got marked down for difficulty and stupid reasons like

"Not enough action" -ZombiU
"Too difficult" -Wonderful 101
"Not enough speed" -Sonic Lost World

If all those were on all 3 consoles, critics would be busting a nut over them.

This. and a dab anti-nintendoism

I think you have a good point in that the reviewer has no stake in whether the game is good or not. Someone who has bought a game has an incentive to try and enjoy it, because they've already spent money on it. But the reviewer who got a review copy has no incentive to enjoy the game outside of the game itself.

I think part of is also that games don't have to be fun to be well-designed, and they don't have to be well-designed to be fun.