Poll: Do you trust user reviews?

[porous_shield]

Many of the reviews at Metacritic are garbage and the reason for that is the people writing them don't stop and think about what they want to say before they start writing. I like to call it "word vomit." Professional reviewers, and many amateurs too, actually take the time to plan out their reviews and what they want to say so they are infinitely more valuable to someone who wants to buy the game.

Another thing wrong with Metacritic is many of the reviews are attacks on games the person hasn't played or played very little of; usually a genre that they hate. I personally dislike FPS war games but I don't write attack reviews on metacritic for them, but some people do do that. I recently read a review on metacritic for a point and click adventure game. The person said the game was boring because all you did was talk to people and solve puzzles, which is an absolutely stupid criticism. It's like saying a swimming pool is boring because all you do is swim and get wet.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Now, this is NOT a supposed to turn into a ME3 ending debate, but the 4.4/10 it gets is quite a bit of criticism for a game that's only real criticism is towards the ending and once again is composed of mostly 0's and 10's.

That's is not the "only real criticism" of ME3. That game actually had quite a lot of issues. They just got overshadowed by the ending debacle.

OT: No, I don't "trust" something as nebulous as the concept of the user review, quite the opposite. I might trust a particular individual if I find their tastes align with mine, but I'm certainly not looking at user review scores and thinking "Truth! The people have spoken!". Not to put too fine a point on it, but the people are idiots. Most of them are score bombing or score boosting, and few of those who aren't go into any great depth or offer any real insight. The recent rise in the popularity of strident, negative criticism isn't helping either, as 99.9% of the people attempting it lack the comic chops to make it fun to read.

The user reviews sub-forum here at the Escapist is frequented by some people who put some real effort into putting together solid reviews, so it's certainly a cut above, but I can't say there's any one person who posts here whose opinion I *trust*.

 

[iTim]

After the proper review companies gave Dragon Age 2, Diablo 3, ME3, I Am Alive and other such games very high reviews I no longer trust them. It's become apparent that these reviews are bought by the companies and can't be trusted. It's much better to just find a couple of user written reviews and read through them to get the gist of a game.

 

[Snatcher]

I would trust a User review like a 'Professional' if they it is well written and justified.
With Justified I mean that the opinion of the Reviewer has to be properly backed up by arguments. I a review is just praising or bashing a game then I will not take the review seriously.