It seems like every year there's two or three games that are heavily marketed, but get released with less than stellar review scores. Preview after preview is shown, press conference after press conference. When the game finally releases ads are plastered all over nearly every gaming web site from here to kingdom come. Free discs and steam keys are given to every reviewer as early as possible in hopes of getting more press coverage. And then the game goes on to get review scores in the low 80's and high 70's. 

Are these games hyped so much that reviewers have come to expect a good game, and wind up giving said game a slightly better score than it deserves? 

What about games that recieve next to no marketing? Would these games have been scored slightly higher if they had been properly marketed? 

Not particularly, I think the games deserved it cause they simply werent that great - regardless of expectations. Examples of this for me would be The Last Guardian and FFXV. Both good games. Both deserving to be in the lower 80's, where they currently are.

No.

Probably not, but I can't really claim to know. It's not an opinion though, so it could be researched.

Look at destiny and battlefront you will find your answer.

It is true sometimes but generally no. An example where hype and such lead to higher score would be a game like GTA4, but the opposite can be true. I think the 10 years and tons of hype hurt say FF15. Had SE announced it for the 1st time in E3 16, it not had multiple demos and such reviewers would not have nitpicked it as much, ya 81 is not a bad score, but a lesser known game of the same quality would have received better reviews.

The games with the most inflated scores tend to be that have little hype and are pleasant surprises. Like Diablo for consoles. No one expected it to translate so well to console, and reviewers overlooked a lot because it was simply much better than they anticipated. Or Tomb Raider 2013, the game is pretty solid, but it was much better than any other Tomb Raider since the PSX days they gave it better scores than it deserved.

Gamers do the same thing. A over hyped game that is actually pretty good gets dumped on because it failed to meet their expectations, but then they praise a suprise game to no end even though side by side the overhyped game is better as a game.

But what if Destiny and Battlefront are huge piles? I mean, they both got what is supposed to be "good or average" review scores. Especially with Battlefront, I feel like it deserved a much lower score. It was half a game, with the other half locked behind a season pass. There wasn't even a single player mode. 

Infinite Warfare - 77
Watchdogs - 80
Battlefront - 73

Nah I don't think it has any influence. If anything the less marketing you do the higher the score, because the only people that bother to review the thing or have even heard of it are probably excited about it.

I know many people who enjoyed both games. I am more of a SP guy myself but especially Destiny had plenty of content and decent mechanics. So it did deserve it's score. I did not play battlefront but since it isn't the first game without a SP campaign cough overwatch caugh I will not hold that against them. I am more of an SP kind of guy, but to say these games deserved lesser scores than they did or are huge piles of garbage isn't my opinion.

My roommate is big Destiny player. He tells me that Bungie couldn't balance a game to save their lives. I know the expansions for Destiny got glowing review scores though. Battlefront reminds me a lot of Splatoon/Overwatch, except EA makes you pay for updates, while Nintnedo/Blizzard hand them out for free. So I agree with you that no SP doesn't always kill a game. If that were true then Overwatch wouldn't be where it's at like you said.