Usually when I'm browsing around the Steam Store looking for something interesting and cheap to buy I used to check the Metacritic user ratings whenever possible. I did this mostly because the user reviews often contained more relevant opinions of the product, like a critique of the story and the quality of the immersion rather than a summary of the graphics or mechanics, especially with smaller, less publicized games. As of recently I've begun noticing on the bigger games the user scores are highly polarized and very different compared to the professional reviews. This isn't a case of "teh mainstream gives gold stickers to shiny crap games from big boys" and more of "I didn't care for the game and a bunch of people really loved it so I have to zero-bomb it to make my opinion have value."
Take Rocksteady's "Arkham City." There are an 48 positive reviews, only 2 (as of this writing) mixed reviews, and 9 negative reviews. Out of 59 reviews, 81% think it's great, 4% think it's ok, and 15% think it's terrible. What I'm curious about is why is there no middle ground with AAA games? Smaller games such as "Bastion" seem to have a review ratio that seems correct proportion to the overall quality of the game (though I may be biased since I loved the game and the big green bar makes me happy). "Battlefield 3" is currently experiencing something similar with 75% positive, 4% mixed, and 21% negative, and I'm sure that "Modern Warfare 3" and "Skyrim" will exhibit similar polarization.
My question is why does this happen? Is it a reaction to the publishing company's decisions, since many reviews cited displeasure with EA's Origin Service, rather than an assessment of the game itself? Are gamers really this polarized with bigger titles? Or is this simply a case of "It's popular so I must hate?"
TL;DR Users are very polarized when giving opinions of bigger games, less so with smaller games. Why happens?
Take Rocksteady's "Arkham City." There are an 48 positive reviews, only 2 (as of this writing) mixed reviews, and 9 negative reviews. Out of 59 reviews, 81% think it's great, 4% think it's ok, and 15% think it's terrible. What I'm curious about is why is there no middle ground with AAA games? Smaller games such as "Bastion" seem to have a review ratio that seems correct proportion to the overall quality of the game (though I may be biased since I loved the game and the big green bar makes me happy). "Battlefield 3" is currently experiencing something similar with 75% positive, 4% mixed, and 21% negative, and I'm sure that "Modern Warfare 3" and "Skyrim" will exhibit similar polarization.
My question is why does this happen? Is it a reaction to the publishing company's decisions, since many reviews cited displeasure with EA's Origin Service, rather than an assessment of the game itself? Are gamers really this polarized with bigger titles? Or is this simply a case of "It's popular so I must hate?"
TL;DR Users are very polarized when giving opinions of bigger games, less so with smaller games. Why happens?
