Funniest thing I have heard today...

On another note, the bigger problem is how gamers interpret reviews. Seems like anything under an 80 (even a 79) is considered a flop it seems. This is just not true. The bigger problem is that the perception of quality has been jaded in the eyes of the consumer and the basic score system has not evolved in response.

Personally I think scores should be done away with altogether. Actually reading the artcle or watching a video is much more informative with the pros and cons to where a much better purchasing decision can be made based on the gamer's personal taste. I mean it has to be more effective than people saying, "what, under an 80? NO BUY!". It is really pathetic and simple minded that this is how it is now, kinda sad really.

I think the missing factor is taste. I'm not going to get into the details, but there are plenty of BIG named games (Witcher series, Uncharted, Heavy Rain, Earthbound, most non-SoulsBorne open-world games) that I either vehemently hate or dislike, yet they review well. Do i think some of the aforementioned are bad? Oh yes. However, I can see someone with different tastes than myself enjoying those games. 

On the other hand, there are games that I love (Bastion, Alundra, Sleeping Dogs, Breath of Fire V) that don't review as well. They're not as renowned or talked about and are more niche (for the most part). 

So yeah, taste is a huge factor. You need to look up and research games/watch gameplay for yourself, then make a decision. 

I guess you can use it as 10 star system as well, 5 star is just what's been usually used to give more weight to particular scores. More important aspect of star system for me is that it does not translate into singular score, but rather a range ( so 4 would be 75-84). Also, for some reason 4/5 feels much better than 8/10 or 80/100....I guess that's becuase star scale is treated more like movie scale then usual game reviews scale.

Which is exactly why a numbered score is the most worthless gauge of quality there is.  All they do is mislead due to this very fact.

One of the troubles is that reviewers have gotten a bit more critical this gen, but most gamers are still entrenched in the old days when it seemed every big game would pull a high 80s/low 90s. To see legitimately good games like Alien Isolation and Dying Light pull 70s can be a bit confusing, since games like that used to get 85 and above. A number of my favorite games this gen have scored in the 70s. To be fair, though, my favorite game so far (this gen) is Bloodborne, which got a very high rating on metacritic. 

The site pretty much has the exact same scores as metacritic maybe 1 higher or one lower, but most of the major games there (at a quick glance) have the same exact scores. Perhaps the only feature it has over metacritic is that they include curators for an easy overview such as Total Biscuit and Eurogamer even if they don't provide a score. Not a fan of their layout though.

Basically this. It just represents the industries average view of the game, does not mean that the scores will be to everyones liking. Best pick a few reviewers you like and follow them if you really don't like metacritic.

This is probably the worst part of metacritic along with the fact, that many gamers often decide to buy a game or not entirely based on these somewhat arbitrary numbers. It is especially bad when people flat out refuse to consider games that are below *insert arbitrary number here*, which usually leads to scores like 70-79 (or even higher) considered bad by a large proportion of gamers. 

It's a good place to find varying opinions of a game in one place that are usually "professionally" written. I can easily find the lower reiviews to see what flaws the game might have, and decide if those are something that would bother me. It works in the same way as steam reviews, where I mostly look at the negative reviews to see if the flaws are something I would be fine with. A score by itself won't tell you if you like the game, but after you've done enough research on it, metacritic can be a good extra tool.

Game reviews are subjective. A game that one person really enjoys, another person might not like at all. I don't think reviewers have gotten more critical. I think the general quality of games this gen, has gone down by a lot. Games are starting to cost too much to make, and devs are starting to cut corners as a result. New IPs don't show up very often these days. Every company is just doing sequels to longstanding franchises.  

There is no review system that is good. Not metacritic, not rottentomatoes, nothing.

Don't buy games solely on review scores then. They're to guide, not to instruct. You know, opinions and what not.