2012: Worst Year Ever Says Metacritic Scores

Meh. I would trust metacritic even if they said that the sky is blue.

Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that there are too many reviewers out there, too many sites to gather data from. This lowers the overall score as certain sites don't publish review scores based on merit, but rather a combination of sponsorship, swag, and just outright opinion. There are too many reviewers these days with too many opinions, increasing the likelihood of a game getting a lower score on metacritic.

How do you write a review that isn't based on opinion?

To clarify: Subtracting points for something that isn't based on merit, but rather opinion. By that, I mean adding or even deducting points for perceived flaws that are based on opinion, not that the flaw is actually a real flaw.
Screen tearing is a flaw. Cartoony-graphic styling is not a flaw, or a plus, but some reviewers add or subtract points based on these things. Adding or subtracting points based on the likability of the main character, some reviewers will enjoy her/him, others will hate, and score accordingly, which is fine.
No review can be without opinion, and indeed they're all opinions. I've repeatedly said in the comments and boards that everything is subjective, and I've defended reviewers pieces as opinions.
That being said, this current discussion is why Metacritic is scoring so many games with a bad average this year, and that's because there are a lot of reviewers, and a lot of opinions, and this can, and does, drag down the average on a website such as Metacritic.

youtube.com/watch?v=RiMOKmp0uZc

Applicable ^

Well lets not just blame the reviewers some games really deserve lower scores than reviwers actually gave them. Like games with built in always online drm that kick you off if your connection is flaky or they have to many people playing so you get connection errors and cant play. Reviewers will still give that game a good score based on its game but the actually gamers will give it close to 0s

Some games do deserve a lower score, true. It isn't entirely the reviewers fault, and I'm just saying, there are a lot of reviewers out there, not that those reviewers are bad, just that there are a lot of them.

User reviews are too spazzy to be taken seriously in general. People give dramatic knee jerk reactions of ecstasy or anger too often instead of measured reviews, so even tho critic reviews can be varied, without some quality control user reviews are pretty worthless.

Critics can be paid off( Whos that? IGN? :) ) or overlook things that would bother the average gamer. Yes I can agree some user reviews are worthless but I can say the same about some paid critics. Thats why i usually read into the details of a review rather than simple "This game is awesome/sucks" or "This game had a shitty box art"

I would be curious about how many more games were produced in 2012 over 2011, and how many "extraordinary" (90% +) have been made over the past 10 years, as opposed to just comparing to last year - maybe last year was an anomaly, or maybe 2011 was. The numbers can be misleading.

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Benjamin Disraeli

2011 was an above average year. So comparing 2012 to 2011 isn't very good statistics. You need a larger data pool to determine if 2012 was actually a bad year. But ya know...news.

I kinda agree. Most of the big new titles i bought this year really didnt catch me. And normally im able to play anything and enjoy it. Alot of indie titles have been doing it for me though.

I blame The Secret World, and - by extension - Jonathan.

"The Xbox 360 came in with slightly less at a 69.5 out of 243 games (Kinect games definitely hurt the average, I'm sure)" Umm...what planet are you living on? Steel Battalion was easily 2012 GOTY. I haven't had that much fun since holding my hands in the air and watching Kinect Joy Ride play itself.