There are games I know I'm buying no matter what, I never even look at their reviews and metascore (ex. The Evil Within, Far Cry 4, new FIFA, Tomb Raider...)

If it's the game I'm doubtful about, I check the scores. If the score is above 80, I know it's a good game, and will get it (ex. Shadows of Mordor)
If it's between 70-80, I read a few good and a few bad reviews to see what the deal is. If I'm satisfied, I wait for the price drop and buy it. If not, I remove it from my list.
If it's below 70, I forget about the game and never think of it again. There are many more games than I have time for, I don't need to waste it on those games.

That's my method, and so far I'm very satisfied with the results.

People say this every time an exclusive or big game gets an average score.

They help but I don't base a purchase solely on a review score.

Metacritic doesn't really mean much to me. I've played high rated games that I liked and high rated games that I hated. Same goes for low rated games.

It works sometimes but isn't always reliable because 1) different scores mean different things to different people and 2) your liking for a game comes down to personal preference.

Example: Batman Arkham City. That game has a really high metascore but when I picked it up, I hated it because I can't stand its insultingly simple combat system. I felt it wasn't fitting for the type of game Arkham City was supposed to be, and I haven't touched it since.

This broadly represents my approach.

Ultimately reviews, and aggregations of reviews, have their place, and guide a lot of people's purchasing habits!

This.  There are a lot of games I like that have got poor reviews, and then there are a lot of games I dislike that got high reviews.  I really don't think gaming journalists review based on how good the games are though, rather they review games based on the expectations of the public. 

Lords of Shadow 2 is one of my favorite games if not my favorite this year and the game had horrible scores.  It's at 63 right now, but it was in the 50s when it was first released.  

White Knight Chronicles might have had a cliche storyline, well written and voiced though so it was atleast entertaining, a decent combat system, with a stupid AI that didn't take advantage of enemies weaknesses, but was smart enough to keep attacking and heal other characters when needed.  This game was bashed to hell and back while a game like Ni No Kuni has a far worse battle system with an AI that will drain your MP the second battle starts, or heal you, one or the other.  Going into battles were almost nothing more than mashing x to victory if you wanted to conserve any MP because of the ridiculous MP costs if you want to do a lot more than your basic attack damage.  Pair this with an even more cliche story full of characters you don't give two shits about.  But hey.  The characters and art are done by Studio Ghibli, so let's shower this piece of shit with praise!

Dishonored scored in the 90s.  Did these gaming journalists play through the very beginning and quit?  Because at first the game was really fun, but once you learn the gameplay mechanics and once you play a bit more into the game, that's where the problems lie.  The game is just boring as hell no matter how good the mechanincs are.  Also the storyline is boring as fuck. 

Final Fantasy 13 was rated high because they gave it a great rating assuming fans would just buy into it.  Final Fantasy 13-2 was given a similar rating because hey, how can you give a game with the same gameplay something lower without looking like a hypocrite?  Let's not forget how the bad the story in FF13-2 was.  Even that Lightning Returns retro story trailer couldn't salvage FF13-2's pos storyline.  Lightning Returns though, based on what I've played, it has a combat that is sort of Demon's Souls-ish, with FF13 style class switching which seemed decent.  Different gameplay, fans bashing the game before it came out?  Didn't matter how good the game was.  It was destined for failure and journalists just bashed it just to be safe(I'm sure that's why it got the 50 score it's in right now.)

So yeah.  There's no journalistic integrity in gaming journalism.  They can't be trusted.

*edit*

It's a pretty huge coincidence that every journalist who played Lords of Shadow 2 at launch hated it.  Everyone that played Final Fantasy 13 and 13-2 loved it.  On both accounts, the opposite was true for the fanbase opinions.

Metacritic is an indicator but a blind trust in their score is stupid, it's not always reliable for example, Alien Isolation is way better than Shadow Of Mordor, but meaningless scores like IGN one because the game is too difficult just prevent the game to reach the score it deserves.


And about reviews in general, most of them have a big flaw making them useless for games with big updates, the journalist never updates the review. The last Gran Turismo is a good example of that.

Never have depended on them, never will.

Im my own critic. If I think I'll enjoy a game, I'll play it. It's all psychological. If you go in to a game thinking it will suck, you just ruined it for yourself. ... oddly you can use this same logic on test. If you go in saying you'll fail, you will fail