9 Critically-Panned Video Games That Players Love

1. Nier

Metacritic Score: 68

Nier: Automata has dominated 2017 thanks to its engagingly rich story and brilliantly realised dystopian world, but all of the great things this sequel did well, the original Nier was doing all the way back in 2010.

Full of just as many quirky gameplay mechanics and retaining the strong sense of personality and dedication to ambitious storytelling, the first game in the franchise admittedly suffered from pretty wonky combat that couldn't come close to the blisteringly kinetic action that Platinum Games crafted for the sequel.

Despite lacking in the gameplay department though, Nier made up for it with everything else. Essentially acting as a love letter to the industry as a whole, the title functioned as a greatest hits tour de force of gaming's greatest hits, moving from sci-fi pulp action one minute to true haunted house survival horror in the space of a few hours.

It pushed the boundaries of what video games could mean and interrogated how they have an impact on players, something which critics completely overlooked at the time but were so eager to praise its sequel for.