The truth of the meta critic user score 4/10 is pretty honest

[Jam3]

The user ratings bare out the average between the ca employees, fanboi's, haters, and honest reviews. That is kind of the whole point of aggregating data and the reason statisticians value more data to give you a real average.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/total-war-rome-ii

You say employees, stakeholders go give it a 10, yep your right
Fanboi's inflate their own scores, yep again your right
Haters lower their own score, yep accurate as well
Some people actually give an honest opinion, yep true too

Thats the entire point, cause the more people that add the more the actual average comes out. And the funniest thing is in my opinion the most honest, personal, british national pride involved, review by the guardian gave it the most accurate 4/10 score and thats exactly where the user average sits.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/06/total-war-rome-ii-review

If you look at the critic reviews the number of rubber stamped 90 scores post release almost destroy's your faith in game reviewing in it's entirety.I think Angry Joe is one of the few game critics we have and 6/10 was generous, pc gamers review of tw2 was a joke, 85/100 it almost feels like they just picked the number out of the sky.Tom Chicks review at least did his part to counter the immediate post-release 90 rubber stamping.

http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2013/09/06/creative-assembly-fiddles-rome-ii-loads/

[Sanzo Hidochi]

That's just not true at all. Mass Effect 3 gets a 4 user score for having a bad ending. Up until that point, the vast majority of people agree, it was nothing short of brilliant. Everyone who isn't blinded by hating rage knows that user scores aren't worth much of anything. They're used to get back at the gaming company for failing to deliver on the hype, not to actually give honest reviews. Rome 2 does NOT deserve a 4, not even close. Rome 2 has the biggest, most detailed, most beautiful campaign map to date. It has hundreds of factions with their own goals and diplomacy. Factions are much more balanced than Rome 1, and most have a lot of units to choose from. The battle AI, although horrible, is not as bad as most previous entries and has many upsides. For example, enemy armies, especially on the defense, will work in unison with one another. Further, the campaign benefits from not having thousands of 1 stack armies everywhere. Of course, it still struggles with the AI not wanting to build the biggest armies, but it's a vast improvement. The sheer quantity of maps is breathtaking and astonishing, and they're (for the most part) well designed and beautiful to behold. This is especially true when you see things like wild life roaming about.Rome 2 also has many other small advantages over its predecessors. Multiple types of movement in the campaign (ambush, forced march, fortify etc...). Cinematic cam. Tactical map. So on and so forth.Most complaints are also, frankly, poorly thought out. The game plays much slower than Rome when you're using late game units, so the "it's too fast" complaint falls apart because it only considers the early game. Units don't keep their formation? Really? Thousands of poorly trained, usually barbaric, units don't keep their formation? Shocking. The game has put into place special passives for units that should keep their formation, such as "formation attack". This way, units who would historically keep their formation will now. Obvious units in phalanx, shieldwall, and so on, will keep their formation as well. The game is also far more balanced than it was previously.I could go on and on. Let's get one thing straight, here. Rome 2 did not live up to the hype/expectations of most, and for good reason. It's a broken mess, frankly. But Rome 2 is, at its core, a great game.

[bangell99]

This has confirmed beyond all doubt that the critic scores are worthless, at least.

[Sanzo Hidochi]

Formatting error. UGH.

[Irishman]

Metacritic user scores get caught up in popular outrage and are often filled by people not even playing the game (see the COD releases, ME3, etc). Flawed games that get the public riled up get their scores overblown because people aren't rating the game fairly, ie- let's give the game a 4, 5 or 6 based on pluses and minuses. They give the game a 0 which drives honest reviews down (either critical or positive).

[familyguy1]

Metacritic? Why in the world are people using that as a metric for how this game was received. Metacritic is .

[someguy00]

This is dumb and wrong, hardly anyone agreed ME3 was 'brilliant' approaching the ending. ME3 was a failure on many levels, not just 'the ending'.

[Sanzo Hidochi]

Yeah, you're wrong. The vast majority of people agreed that Mass Effect 3 was great, up until the last ten minutes. Google it, seriously.

[Sanzo Hidochi]

Yeah, you're wrong. The vast majority of people agreed that Mass Effect 3 was great, up until the last ten minutes. Google it, seriously. Most people thought it was a great game up until that ending.

[Ataegina]

metacritic is a troll site, just to not say worst...... and this should stop, this all "only honest reviews are the only ones wich gives pretty low scores" if someone enjoys the game is automaticaly lynched online and labeled "fanboy, CA employee,etc etc" well i'm enjoying the game, despite having flaws, so i guess my CA paycheck got lost midway CA HQ and my home in norway *gasp*

[Caesar_1991]

Arnt there a bunch of 0 scores? That does seem pretty honest to me. I love Rome 2. Its waaaaay better than Rome 1. I think people tend to forget that all the Rome 1 they played was patched fully and most likely modded. I mean to be honest I thought R2 was going to be RS2 with super graphics. It wasn't until a day after release that I was basing my hopes basically on a updated and professional mod. I was wrong and a bit disappointed. Then I looked at it from a vanilla, non modded, perspective and guess what? I love it. I love the graphics, the atmosphere, the fact there is 117 factions, socii units. I hate the senate but that's just because there backstabbers. I love Rome 2. I wish they would open another forums for people to complain in. General discussion is pretty useless right now

[stn]

I like that metacritic pretty much always tells me if there is a game I should stear clear off. It serves its purpose. I would rather read reviews on metacritic, than those posted by gamespot or any of the other official reviewers, who blatantly lie.

[Cross_]

I can't help but laugh a little when a person says I'm going to go back and play X game with Y mod because its a better game. All that tells me is they don't even really like TW games at all unless they are modded.

[stn]

Yeah, you're wrong. The vast majority of people agreed that Mass Effect 3 was great, up until the last ten minutes. Google it, seriously.

Mass Effect was a stinking pile of on so many levels, even looking past the ending.

Youtube: "Bookends of destruction, part 1-5".

[Sanzo Hidochi]

Mass Effect was a stinking pile of on so many levels, even looking past the ending. Youtube: "Bookends of destruction, part 1-5".

No thank you. An obscure video on Youtube doesn't, in any way, serve to solidify your position that Mass Effect 3 was not well received by most people (until the ending). Nice try though!

[qqsuen]

No thank you. An obscure video on Youtube doesn't, in any way, serve to solidify your position that Mass Effect 3 was not well received by most people (until the ending). Nice try though!

Both of you need solid evident like survey results to support you views. 'Go search on google' or a random youtube video proves nothing.And this is a thread talking about Rome 2 in the Rome 2 general discussion secession of Total War center. Some of you might be adviced to move your debate about Mass Effect elsewhere.

[Sanzo Hidochi]

I'm using it to help demonstrate a well known truth, and he's arguing it just to be a pain. Everyone knows metacritic user scores are worthless and often overly harsh.

[baldrick13]

but the scores are going to keep getting lower and lower with more people getting angry and when the game eventually gets to the "1" userscore only THEN will you people question metacritic.but right now you are considering metacritic as the benchmark for seeing if a game is good. does anybody remember the DMC controversy? (when the game got a low userscore because of the main character's freaking HAIR!)

[SinerAthin]

It's not exactly a secret that the vast majority of the user scores are made by people with a lot of feelings and very little actual knowledge, often following popular hate/love trends.

[Doe3000]

I think the user score on Metacritic has dropped to 3.9 now. Rome 2 has its fair share of problems on release, but I honestly don't believe it deserves a 0 out of 10. Only a game like Planet of the Apes which had terrible controls, bad graphics, bugs, glitches and was virtually unplayable to the point where you couldn't complete the first mission. Now that game might deserve a 1 or 2 out of 10.