I mean high standards in the sense that a general score of 73 is considered 'bombing' for a game. in the 70-80 range, a game would still be considered 'good'. Even games in the 60 range can still be enjoyable. It's not a matter of settling for something that is 'lesser' than previous games, but enjoying, or not enjoying said game, and look forward to the next game.

I have already explained exactly what is wrong with the reasoning in your argument multiple times, including with the post you are responding to. You are trying to assess "this is what a good game is" completely out of context of quality expectation of the game in question.

Let me try to put it to you another way: for book reviews, books in the 65% to 75% range are generally considered good.

Fans of Song of Ice and Fire have waited 6 years for the next book in the series. The books generally score about 85%-88% by reviewers and are expected to offer a certain amount of length. If GRR Martin, in all that time, and with the television show present, only released a book of perhaps 480 pages and had a 73% rating with reviewers; should readers be happy and satisfied that they got a good book? Of course not, this is the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series in 6 years, the expectation is for something more substantial and of higher quality.

You must be new to this gaming thing.  The problem is a matter of perspective.  For example, there is a website that litterally scores based on 5 being average and 6 being abover ave, and so on up to 10.  The problem here is their score is added to metacritic, where a 7 is a ave/good game and so on, and drags thay score down.  Guess what, your way of thinking just kept you from enjoying a game you may have liked

because you are closed minded from lack of knowledge regarding how flawed the media is.

Then look at some of the overrated games out there.  Final Fantasy 13 had graphics and...yeah that it.  It had crappy plot, boring characters, and was fsr too linear for its own good.  Not to mention that horride battle system where you just mash autofight for 90% of all encounters.  BUT it got an 83 on metacritic so it MUST be at least decent right?  And here is a game you would buy and then be let down due to you lack of knowledge about how gaming media works.

Heck what youpropsose does not even make any sense.  If an 8 is average  why bother having 10 numbers?  A five star system would be more accurate on that case.  In the old days, 7 was (and still is) a good score.  6 is fair and might be worth playing to some  though a pass for most.  5 is horrible and anything below that is just a degree of how broken the game is.

So in the end, you are only limiting yourself by having such a closed minded view on review scores.  Just because you think a number means something does not mean the reviewer feels the same way, and that is the problem.  In a review based on what the reviewer believes your opinion on what the score means is absolutely worthless.  Think about that for a minute and let that sink in.

The games may be on the easy side, but your analogy is a little messed up, lol. I don't mind games being "too easy" as long as their fun, and I prefer easy games to hard games, since they can become rather frustrating, and I don't think it's fair to dock points based on difficulty, especially of a game such as Kirby which is aimed at a younger audience.

Honestly, I don't even consider 73 a bad score, I think it's a good score for games, but then again I count 50/100 as being "average", which I've been told is wrong, lol :P

It's 2018. for the past decade the standard has been:

< 80  Ass-tier

80-89 Good games

90-93 Great games

94-95 Masterpieces

>95 Over-Hyped Trash

I have already explained exactly what is wrong with the reasoning in your argument multiple times, including with the post you are responding to. You are trying to assess "this is what a good game is" completely out of context of quality expectation of the game in question.

Let me try to put it to you another way: for book reviews, books in the 65% to 75% range are generally considered good.

Fans of Song of Ice and Fire have waited 6 years for the next book in the series. The books generally score about 85%-88% by reviewers and are expected to offer a certain amount of length. If GRR Martin, in all that time, and with the television show present, only released a book of perhaps 480 pages and had a 73% rating with reviewers; should readers be happy and satisfied that they got a good book? Of course not, this is the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series in 6 years, the expectation is for something more substantial and of higher quality.