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[Slowminder]

Few years ago I thought that Metacritic was pretty relevant. When I was thinking about purchasing the game, I would go to Metacritic first.
What do we have nowadays?
Mirrors Edge - 3.8
Fallout 4 - 5.4
Overwatch - 6.9
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I have this feeling that people just jump on some kind of hatetrain. They even haven't played the game, but they have to downvote it because of some stupid reason.

[Türbo Bröther]

Never have I trusted Metacritic.

[s0]

Metacritic user scores have always been useless. Critic scores marginally less so. Fuck a metacritic.

[Schoq]

Maybe in the future people will be less dumb and won't think of a number on a website as the canonised objective value of a thing they happen to like and then maybe they can be upset about other things. Who knows

[Slowminder]

Maybe in the future people will be less dumb and won't think of a number on a website as the canonised objective value of a thing they happen to like and then maybe they can be upset about other things. Who knows

The problem is: how can you prevent spending 60$ on some garbage or just the game that you don't like? There were several times when I liked the game on YouTube, but then I've played it and was disappointed.

[s0]

you could start by actually reading reviews and not just looking at numbers.

[Cobralad]

i dont trust

[Schoq]

remember before this dystopian future when playable demos existed and you didn't have to rely on publisher sponsored youtubers, rushed written reviews by someone who didn't actually play the game, or peers with incomprehensibly stupid grudges and loyalties dictating judgement

[Cobralad]

demos damage profit

[Slowminder]

you could start by actually reading reviews and not just looking at numbers.

Many reviewers are sell-outs.
Actual solution is written one post beneath yours.
Right now there are like 20-30 demo versions in PS store. While there are ~1000 titles.
Nintendo f*cked up many things, but I have to thank them for demo versions for all major projects. That's why I bought Monster Hunter 4 and Resident Evil: Revelations.

demos damage profit

They won't if the game is really good. Oh, shi-

[Cobralad]

but you want to benefit out of impulse buyers and curious people

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

release demo < 1 month after release.

[Mittens]

I don't really do reviews at all.
I skip through let's plays of games that sound interesting to see if they look fun

[s0]

I never play demos tbh. Too much hassle to download and install them and they can be deceptive as fuck sometimes, particularly for longer games.

[s0]

I don't really do reviews at all.
I skip through let's plays of games that sound interesting to see if they look fun

same

[Jordgubben]

Metacritic calculates numerical averages from categorical data. My inner statistician does not approve.

[Alevice]

I never play demos tbh. Too much hassle to download and install them and they can be deceptive as fuck sometimes, particularly for longer games.

indeed. sanitarium had a great opener available on the demo, that lost tracka s the game went by

[voidSkipper]

I can honestly think of only one time I bought a game after playing its demo, and that was Freespace2 after buying the demo that came with a logitech joystick. The demo was a good 1/3rd of the game, had maybe two hours of gameplay, and left off right where the story had you sucked in.

[s0]

I never play demos tbh. Too much hassle to download and install them and they can be deceptive as fuck sometimes, particularly for longer games.

indeed. sanitarium had a great opener available on the demo, that lost tracka s the game went by

duke nukem 3d's reputation is almost entirely based on the free shareware episode

[Manuel Magalhães]

Metacritic is alright, it's useful to see what's the overall impression of a game (from critics, unfortunately user score is astroturfed a lot) and how divisive it is.
That said, I don't think it's a good idea to use Metacritic as a "buying compass". Whenever a game has a long range of scores or receives a similar score from multiple critics, it's not a guarantee that someone else will agree with that Metascore. For instance, I don't care about a couple of "universally" praised games and I love some games that have a mediocre/bad Metacritic score. Accepting a critic's score without knowing the critic isn't useful, let alone accepting scores from multiple critics. More than checking the score, I believe it's important to read the game's review and preferably also read a couple of reviews from games of the same genre by the same critic. If the things they focus on are relevant for you and if they share a similar opinion as you in a couple of games, the chances that you might agree with the reviewer about a game are high, even if it's not 100% certain.

I personally follow recommendations from people that have similar taste in games as me, search info about the game (description, screenshots, play footage, etc.), and play demos. Not a bullet proof approach, but it has worked reasonably well over the years.