Well, to be fair, Tropical Freeze, Mario 3D World, and New Super Mario Bros U all scored lower on metacritic their Wii prequels.

What about Quarter to Three giving Mario 3D World 6/10 and Forza Horizon 2 a 2/10? 

who the hell gave 3D world a 6?

Like he said, Quarter of Three:

http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2014/01/01/super-mario-3d-world-2/

They're game review average is actually lower than the norm on Metacritic, too.

Yeah that's bullshit,  i HATE mario games and id still have given it at 7.5 at worst. 

Smaller sites are the cost of some cheap hosting,  larger sites have staff to employ, servers to pay for,  the corporations that own them want to see a return in investment,  the stakes are much higher. 

Being a big site doesnt make them above dirty tactics,  it just makes them better at getting away with it. 

oh am sure. But im talking about lowering a review score just to get traffic specifically. it would benefit a smallter site moreso a larger one. As i said I dont even think most of IGN traffic these days even come from the vido game side.  So it seems like a waste at least to me

I think its both. 

there are tiny improbemets that if added the very next year like parkour in shooters(ghost to advance warfare) it dosent get that big of an impact since titanfall already did it, but where to wait another year and parkour pluss who know what the next thing is, lets say underwater levels, then those 2 things can make a game much more diferent then the last, while one at a time feels like is just the same thing as before with a gimmick.

Why else was the lastest assin creed so luke warm in reception, they just added ocean exploration then came back to the same thing the very next year with a litle added bonus of hunting other assasings wich was to litle of a change. And unity went to the root of the previous games but just added multyplayer. Thesse changes went unapreciated.

Its just my opinion by the way, but I do feel that with time more things can be added, even if those things are from other games that are getting riped off, it still adds to the experience and the more you wait, the bigger the change that can happen.

Reviewers are mainly just bloggers who make money off the clicks to their sites. Personally, I just ignore them and any reviews. It's simple. I like certain genres and the majority of the games in those genres I'll like. Just a little bit of research and I'll know if I want to play it or not. If i'm not sure, I buy it used and take it back for a full refund if I don't like it. If I like it then I'll buy whatever dlc as a way of rewarding the dev/pub for their game.

Not really all that surprising that there would be reviewers doing it to generate more hits. Controversy creates interest and discussion so wether we like this or not it will continue to be a factor.
On the plus side at least with social media and things like let's play videos we can get more informed before we decide to purchase a game so all in all this shouldn't be an issue for most people.

The only sad thing is that if this issue leads to sites and or publications becoming discredited for apparent trolling , it could lead to them losing revenue and consequently people losing their jobs.