Is it the hype that is surrounding it or the reviews it gets? Is a game like Dead Space that was on nobody's radar but still had amazing reviews a AAA title or a game like RE5 that was superhyped and in development for almost 3-4 years but received disappointing reviews due to its old fashioned gameplay? Do you think if a game sells really well but isn't well reviewed by critics a AAA title or do sales even have anything to do with it?

Would you classify any of these games as AAA?:

Infamous

Dead Space

RE5

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune

Prince of Persia

Assassin's Creed

Resistance 1 and 2

COD WAW

Sport Games

sports games no, the rest yes I would.

In the industry a AAA game is one that has been worked on for awhile with a large budget.

but according to the fanboys it is a game that has over 89% on metacritic

RE5 received bad reviews because of its old fashion gameplay???Nothing was old fashioned in RE5

Well yes with hype, RE5 was great. Dead Space was a new IP, which was good in sales.
AAA are the elite games.

A game with boobs gets one A
A game with blood and gore gets one A
A game with an exceptional plot, character and level design, graphics, sound, controls and gameplay gets one A
A game on the Wii loses one A

It basically has to be an anticipated title which delivers, and gets very good reviews. Not necessarily 90+, but that isn't what matters most. I don't think many would call BlazBlue AAA, because nobody's heard of it, but a game like Uncharted, with lower reviews, is widely considered AAA because it's so awesome.

In short, it's whatever you want it to mean.

This

I'm kind of confused. Dead Space with 88 on Metacritic got amazing reviews, but RE5 with 86 on Metacritic, 2% lower, got disappointing reviews?

I would go with this too. So, most of the games from the list are AAA, maybe apart from "sport game".

Saying, that AC isn´t AAA, well, it´s weird. of course it is, it just wasn´t that good, as people think it will be. But not all AAA games must be great.