Opencritic has a different sypnosis from them. Strange. 

Well, I don't care about supposed troll reviews with Death Stranding. It probably does have some serious flaws that make one or two reviewers just hate it. But with Sekiro, RDR2, and Xenoblade X, I think those games just aren't for you. Not liking a game because of the genre is different than not liking the game for other reasons. Nobody should review a game in a genre that they don't like. And some people just don't have enough experience with games to have any business reviewing them. I've seen freelance writers in their 40's that barely play games, get thrown a JRPG review. The result is cringeworthy. 

Death Stranding (86), according to Open Critic already have 14 perfect scores, more than Sekiro (90) with 13 and just behind DMC 5 (88) with 18 and Resident Evil 2 (92) with 40.

A Link's Awakening (87), Apex Legends (86) and Outer Worlds (85) have 6, Fire Emblem Three Houses (89) have 4, Astral Chain (88) and Super Mario Maker 2 (88) have 3.

So i guess, Death Stranding is doing just fine it seems...There is 39 9'0 or more reviews already from the total 73 reviews. So more than half the reviewers liked a lot the game. If it wasn't for some troll click bait reviews, the game would be close to 90 on opencritic. In reality there isn't much drama about this game regarding grades...Almost every big game this year is getting 85-90..., except for RE2 which it seems should be on pole position for Game of the Year (but i must say, despite being an inconditional fan of the original, and liking a lot the remake, i find the game a little bit overrated, but that's just me).

The game will sell a ton and being one of the most awarded games of the year, so mission fufilled by Hideo Kojima and Sony it seems.

The overall scores really dont matter that much, other than to brag about how right/wrong your prediction was. It was gonna be divisive from the start, specially coming from Kojima, whose artistic approach is just not for everyone. When it comes to reviews I personally only take seriously a few of sources im already familiar with, because I know they grade based on factors that matter to me and therefore I can consider them reliable reviewers, as opposed to say, that Stevivor guy, who got what he wanted in the end, didnt he? I was so curious and went to this page and read his whole review. It got him the attention, bless his heart.

That’s not how reviewing games work. Hell thats not bow reviewing anything works. Some of you have some insane notions for how reviews should work. Just because someone intended for something to play out or work in some way doesn’t mean you can’t criticize it for not doing it differently.

We saw this recently with Crackdown 3, it was torn to shreds for not having a more modern SP offering and basically being a throwback to the original style. By your logic it should have been praised for succeeding in the vision of the developers. Same with Days Gone. Sony Bend gave us the game they wanted. But devs just didn’t think that game was great.

Also, there’s zero reason why a reviewer shouldn’t deduct points from a game because it doesn’t meet their bias or expectations. That’s why, in your example of cartoony games, if you’re a fan of those, you ignore those reviewers who do what you described and only read those who are fans of the style.

I look forward to the cries of reviewer bias against Sony when last of us part 2 scores well and wins most goty awards..You guys take these things way too seriously

"Death Stranding is something completely new, a unique experience. With big Emotions / Story, interesting Characters and Psychology/Philosophy-Aspects".

Awesome :)

Biggest problem are bad journalists, and most of them are from US. Most of them do not know how to play certain games (tutorial level for Cuphead), they are almost always included in controversies (Resident Evil 2 Remake score - they didn't know about second campaing and later raised score for 0.2 lol) etc. 

Conclusion: gaming journalists are not gamers and are not journalists. There are always exceptions, this might be rude generalisation, but that's the current state. 

As a journalist, you get your month pay. Your duty is to play and FINISH a video game. Most of them did not finished Crash Bandicoot N'sane Trilogy, and it is not a long game, so they cannot have excuse. For god's sake, they should finish their games for two times at least before review, they for sure have time for that. I would kill for that opportunity, to play games before everyone else and review it OBJECTIVELY from my perspective. For example, f I don't like stealth games, I would not rate Thief 2 as a 5/10 game, or Battlefield 3 as a 6/10 because I don't like shooters or multiplayer gaming. This is getting ridicoulous. 

If someone does not like a game because of boring open-world, fetch quest - it's perfectly fine - but provide us a decent review. You should not give 35/100 and lose every credibility you might have before, or whine on twitter and make fool of yourself because you can't finish game, cause it's boring for you. 

There is lack of consistency for reviewing games. Decimal scoring, changing of criteria throughout generations, ignoring scores below seven for few years - and now we have mess like this, when a 80% game is bad, but should be very good, or great. Hell, 70% game for me is good. Remember Me, Binary Domain had that scores, and I fucking loved that games. 

Genre has nothing to do with it though.  I love DQ11 and Xenoblade Chronicles.  I absolutely adore Souls.  I just didn't like X and Sekiro, for many reasons.  That is the problem with the posts in this thread.  Everybody wants to normalize reviews.  Problem being you can't normalize a subjective opinion.

Edit

I also thought UC1-3 were perfection, but thought UC4 was meh.  Most people disagree and found UC4 to be bliss.  I shouldn't be forced to review UC4 higher because Sony.  I would give it a 6/10.  

Nah..., it will receive sub 90 on metacritic... you'll see. "Too much killing dogs", "unnecesary sequel story", "subpar gameplay like every Naughty Dog game",.....mmmm what else???, "lack of multiplayer", "walking simulator", etc, etc...

So yes if TLOU 2 does not receive a 95+ on metacritic will be definitive proof of our suspicions, us Sony silly fans.

(i'm joking)

And by the way, nobody is talking too seriously this thing, come on!!, at least i am not, it's just today, for the fun. What i'm going to discuss or argue in a review thread if not the scores that are given??.In a week nobody will care about it.....So in the name of Sony silly fans, don't worry non Sony silly fans, we know our games are not 10/10....always. We'll live another day to accept that....