10/10 Video Games The Public REJECTED
1. Starfield
If you didn’t see it coming before you’d probably be none too surprised to see this one in the top slot. Starfield certainly has its fans but much like Overwatch 2, this was expected to nail it since it came from a studio who proved they had the capacity to produce a truly masterful video game.
Unfortunately, Starfield was not a masterful video game, in fact most fans found it to be deeply average, which is odd since its review scores are actually great. Seriously, it got a bunch of 10/10s and its Metacritic score is somehow 85/100. I know.
While the game is, by most reports, in better shape now than it was at launch almost a year ago, there’s a massive gulf between the critical reviews that praised the game world, graphics, joy of exploration, and score as opposed to the reception from the public. Some players took to online forums to say they found the experience to be mediocre but not fantastic, while others criticised the narrative for being largely soulless, in addition to the game’s one note characters, disappointing systems and writing, and reliance on procedural generation that stripped the game of that rich Bethesda goodness.
Maybe you liked this one more than others or maybe you hated it more, but the disparity between the critical reception and that of the public at large is one of the bigger divides in recent video game memory. If you’ve got any more ideas you know where to put them.