Games like Lair are going to have all kinds of reviews.  Some people thought it was completely broken, and some people enjoyed it despite flaws.  Just becuase you enjoyed it doesn't mean it was underrated.  This is where reviewers disagree and why a game like MGS are gonna vary from 8-10.

As far as Halo 3 goes, i think there were reviews based on hype, but I think you can make an argument for Halo 3 getting a 9.5 or so.  Most of the complaints would come from the fact that the game hasn't changed enough, but that isn't necessarily a reason to drop the score.  I'm not saying i agree with that argument but it's there and I think it's reasonable.

@ johnsobas

Everything is relative, Lair (55.7% on average) provides so much more game than for example a game like Rumble Roses XX (62.5%, by far the worst 360 game I've played!) did. Lair has little to no competition for the gerne it serves, it is a pretty unique game. Rumble Roses XX is certainly one of the worst efforts I have have ever seen which tries to cover its gerne. Lair has its very impressive epic moments, RR has none of that.

One thing is for sure after the analog stick patch for Lair, I know I totally prefer Sixaxis controls for Lair, which was one of its most criticized features.

Lair could have used far more polish considering the type of Epic game they were aiming for, but you can easily see a lot of effort went into the game. The project just was too big for Factor5 to handle within the given timeframe.

The Sixaxis controls work perfectly for me, in Lair, in Ratchet & Clank: TOD and Super Ruba Dub (we got all gold medals, a long time ago and had a lot of fun doing so). I hope more games will start to make use of this functionality and don't hold back just because of some IMO seemingly dishonest reviewers.

Overhype always occurs for these types of games, and I blame it on reviewer fanboyism. It's something that is far more prevalent in game reviews than in movie reviews, for example.

A good example is Twilight Princess. It was a great game, and I am a huge Zelda fan myself, but it mostly got off too easy just by having the Zelda brand. For me, it's the least interesting console Zelda since Zelda II. I had far more fun playing (and replaying) A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker and Majora's Mask (my personal favorite).

Sure, you could criticize Wind Waker for repetitive sailing sessions and too few dungeons, but exploring was so much fun, and the number of miniquests and collectibles were amazing.

Twilight Princess had some amazing dungeons, but my main problem was that while the overworld was huge, it was so boring! Too few minigames and sidequests, and the fishing was for me far more fun in Ocarina of Time.

Also, I felt Miyamoto got away too easy with the whole mirroring for the Wii version of the game. When you completely flip the entire game just to make the gimmicky sword slash feel more natural for right handed players, you at the same time insult the artistic integrity of the game's art. If I was a graphics artist working on TP, I would be so provoked by Miyamoto's decision. Thank God they kept the Gamecube version intact.

This guys is a douche... He pretty much said he gave it a low score because it got good reviews and because its glass bottles weren't good...

All reviewers can score it 5/10 for all I care, that won't change I already have it, that won't change I love it, that won't change it is a masterpiece to me.

2 points for minor details? I can list 100 for GTA 4 but it is a 10? This reviewer is nothing more than an attention whore.

None of you understand, how good this game is.. this game made me cry, this game is not an ordinary game at all.

Until you play it and beat it, once you get to act 4 its an emotional ride from there on, dont compare GTA 4 with MGS4, doing that would be an offense to MGS4.

edit:

to stay on topic, look this game shouldnt even get a score, these scores are meaningless, I dont care if it gets a 1, that just shows how pathetic the reviewer is. Trust me this game is no 10 or 8.

Wow, this guy has brought out a lot of whiney fanboys ...

Early reviews tend to be the most positive reviews for a game, in part because the reviewers tend to be the least independant and are unable to give an (overly) harsh review for a game; over time you see more and more low scores as reviewers attempt to give fair reviews, with the occasional attention whore who just wants to attract controversey.

Personally, after playing Metal Gear Solid 1, 2 and 3 I personally believe that 8/10 is a reasonable score for this game if it is anything like the first 3 games; the gameplay of those games shows its age and feels like it was designed around the limitations of the Playstation, the dialogue is awful and the story is so convoluted that it makes the starwars prequels look like great literature in comparison.

 The game can be played a variety of ways, like actually using stealth going around undetected and using the octocamo to blend into the enviroment which was why it was implemented. i'm not sure how many other games can use the enviroment around you so much better that you could say it pales in comparison to others. anyways he opts for gun battles which he chose to do when he didn't have to. boss fights are epic, customizable weapons, what more can you want? i'd say this gunplay is better than gta4 so in his logic, gta4 shouldn't have such a high score either