I think one of the main problems with user reviews is that they're often far too aware of the aggregate score, and so, many of them often base their scores around "fixing" the existing score by pushing it towards the "correct" value. This is the fourth great fan-boy rage I can think of in recent memory (for those not keeping track it's BvS, Warcraft, Ghostbusters, and now Suicide Squad) and the conduct of fans in those instances have completely destroyed what little faith I once had in user review scores. Every single one of those movies had massive amounts of review bombing, with users throwing masses of 10/10 reviews (or in Ghostsbuster's case, both 10/10 and 0/10) and many of the reviews being nothing but bitter rants about those evil critics. I'm so sick of hearing about the supposed Marvel bias, "not GoT or LoTR" bias (for Warcraft) and SJW bias (see if you can guess which one that's for).
If you want an example of why I don't regard user reviews with much validity, just take a look below.
http://i.imgur.com/zcmnH9t.jpg
Oh, what a coincidence that the bell curve falls around a 6-7 for this movie. I'm sure that sudden spike of 10s are from completely honest and well thought out reviews, rather than a bunch of bitter fans trying to validate their enjoyment of some media (because god forbid you like things without the approval of some number). That's not to say I really care about critic opinions, but if I have to chose between the reviews of critics and the reviews of fans, excuse me if I go for the one that at least has some veneer of professionalism.
Personally, I think people take numbers way too seriously. The number of times I've seen people raging at some critic and telling them they've lost all credibility for giving game X an 8, while giving game Y an 8.1, is evidence enough that people need to stop fixating on these numbers.
If you want an example of why I don't regard user reviews with much validity, just take a look below.
http://i.imgur.com/zcmnH9t.jpg
Oh, what a coincidence that the bell curve falls around a 6-7 for this movie. I'm sure that sudden spike of 10s are from completely honest and well thought out reviews, rather than a bunch of bitter fans trying to validate their enjoyment of some media (because god forbid you like things without the approval of some number). That's not to say I really care about critic opinions, but if I have to chose between the reviews of critics and the reviews of fans, excuse me if I go for the one that at least has some veneer of professionalism.
Personally, I think people take numbers way too seriously. The number of times I've seen people raging at some critic and telling them they've lost all credibility for giving game X an 8, while giving game Y an 8.1, is evidence enough that people need to stop fixating on these numbers.
