Metacritic counts way too many reviewers who don't actually review. I've seen very little game journalists who review games to their entirety with deep observance, coherent reasoning, and understanding of what the games are trying to achieve. Since GamerGate, my trust in game journalism went from moderate to almost nothing. Do we seriously need people to review the reviewers and establish a reputation system?

I wouldn't say I depend on it...but I like to use it to gauge what the general opinion on a game is. If it's a game I was on the fence about, it might push me over the edge if it gets great reviews.

However...relying on a number formed by aggregate opinion shouldn't be treated as anything more than that...aggregrate opinion. A game that scores a 92 and a game that scores an 89 really shouldn't be compared directly, since a difference of 3 points over 50+ reviewers is basically irrelevant. On the other hand, if one game scores 68, and another 93, it's usually safe to say that there's a real difference in actual quality between the games. There are exceptions of course (especially with more niche genres or Japanese games), but I find this usually holds true.

Interestingly enough, around this time last year, I was actually of the opposite mind. I decided that Metacritic was worthless, and kept to my original plan of getting Sonic: Lost World over Mario 3D World even after reviews came out. Good lord...not gonna make that mistake again.

Metacritic does it all wrong. There is a grading system in gymnastics, where they take out the highest score and the lowest score (in case of favouritism or biased scoring) and add up the rest... wait it's Diving. Anyway, in this case they should do the same, a high score and a low score can screw a games ranking. Let's take DriveClub as it is the subject matter really, and we take out the top 2 highest and bottom 2 lowest and produces a mean from the rest. This removes the high 96 and 91 scores but also removes the 40 and one of the 50. It ends up at 74-75, which is about right based on all other reviews.

Destiny is another good example, some idiot gave is 45. Even if he thought it was unfinished it's not a 45 in any regards, yet the 100 it got was also questionable. Take out the top 2 and lowest 2, you'll probably get a higher number than it's current as the 2 lowest are a 45 and 50, the next is a 60. Those 2 scores are pulling the mean down.

Either this or people should just look at the 3 coloured bars, if most are in the green section, it's probably a good game.

Or people should read the conclusions, most will give an honest opinion.

Or maybe people should just it themselves.

What do you mean with "trying to achieve"? If a studio would make a racing game where you only would have to break or accelerate reviewers wouldn't be allowed to criticise this because that's the way devs designed that game?

No, you can of course criticise this - if goals are set too low than you have to say this.

Many many casual gamers don't even know Metacritic exist, and many other casual - casual/hardcore and hardcore gamers don't even bother Metacritic.

This metacritic is just food for some members of forums here and there, who represents a very small percentage of all gamers.

So, don't worry buddy.

I never depended on it: it can give me a very vague idea, but I trust more reviews on magazines or sites I respect or that at least have reviewers with tastes similar to mine. Even if I don't trust a review or I consider the reviewers respectable, but I don't share their opinions and tastes, if the review was written well enoughI can read the reasons why a high or low score was given and decide whether I agree or not. And obviously I rely also on word-of-mouth, again filtering it with my tastes: if a game is declared "awesome" by users, but the only reason given is graphics, and the game appears to be excessively on-rails, I know it's not for me.

This applies to the whole forum "business".

It's a fine line to judge which is why reviewing is always a confusing business. All review are subjective, it's in their nature but should Mario Kart be judged on the basis of it being a racing sim like Gran Turismo or Forza? They are all racing games. Or should all games be judged on their individual merit of being a good/fun game. A game that is designed to just be accellerate and break may be a fun challenging game (made for iphone probably... sounds like a good idea, I might make it and give you commission) because it requires precision and skill, or it could be addictive. Yet should it be critised for not being Gran Turismo?

No, but games don't exist in a closed vacuum and if people's opinions are influenced by racers they played before it is their right to judge a game with other games in mind. Intentionally or not.

See, back in the 90's I played Daytona USA on Saturn for several weeks. The game was sp much fun to play back then although there were only 3 (!) tracks and about 5 different cars IIRC (with MT 10 cars). But such a game wouldn't just keep up with nowadays standards.

Time moved on and not only graphics get better but content is getting more, variety is getting more and this what also counts in evolution of gaming: the requirements rise, too, and it is good that they rise, in my opinion.

A game that is designed to just be accellerate and break may be a fun challenging game  is true, yes, but it would never get high reviews because it is surely lacking in gameplay and variety.

There are almost 100 iOS games with a metascore over 90! There are way over 1000 iOS games over 75!