Crtic scores vs user scores - which is more reliable?

At first glance, this might seem like an unnecessary post because most gamers would immediately say they decide the purchase of a game based on the review by their favorite gaming site or sites. But wait! Its not as simple as that. Critic review scores do not always indicate how good or bad a game is. More often than not, user scores are better indicators of the quality of games.

Most people don't give much importance to user reviews and scores, and dismiss them as 'angry rants of whiny gamers'. Agreed, user reviews tend to be more negative and hard hitting than professional critic reviews. But they're also much more honest. There are several aspects which need to be considered here.

Professional reviewers are paid to rate and review games, and are often required to follow certain formats. They tend to focus a lot on the minute details, and often fail to properly judge the 'enjoyability' of the game as a whole. As a result of this, most professional review scores only indicate how 'perfect' the game is (usually on a scale of 10 or 100), rather than how 'enjoyable' it is. A technically advanced game with dull gameplay is likely to get a higher professional score (Crysis 3 is the best example of this) than a technically flawed but immensely enjoyable game (such as Deadly Premonition). But user reviews and scores are usually based purely on the enjoyability quotient of the game, because users aren't paid to go into the technical aspects and most gamers aren't even aware of these little details. We as gamers obviously want enjoyable games more than technically perfect games, so it would definitely make more sense to go by user scores rather than critic scores. Its a no-brainer, really.

Another notable aspect to consider, is the average scores of several professional reviews and user scores. That would help you take a better decision about a game's purchase (after all, games don't come cheap anymore, at least at launch). Sites like Metacritic and Gamerankings are your go-to sources for average scores. But even while considering the average, it is generally a better idea to give a higher priority to average user score than the average critic score. To illustrate this, consider the last few Call of Duty games. There is an extremely high discrepancy between the average critic and user scores on metacritic (with the critic scores being much higher than user scores), and in reality most gamers haven't really liked these games. Hence, the average user score is definitely more accurate in this context.

Considering the fact that most AAA games in recent years have been duds and games don't exactly come cheap, it would be wise to do your homework before spending your hard earned cash on a game purchase. But you can afford to take risks with Indie games, because they're often much cheaper than AAA games and have actually been better than the biggies in recent years.

Something off-topic - It looks like I'm back with a bang after my two-month hiatus, with 3 posts in 2 days!