The haters are out again in force this year; this time for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. For the second year in a row, there seems to be a large disparity in the reviews for a Call of Duty game between critic reviews and user score on Metacritic, bringing into question the legitimacy of the website's review process. Now, normally, I'm all for everyone having their own opinion of a game, but Metacritic has become known as a place for angered gamers to go and slam a game's score.
Despite favorable reviews from "established" critics equating to a score of 86/100, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, the latest installment of the hit franchise, has a user score of only 4.0. It appears the sub-par score seems to be a result of numerous users giving it a 0/10.
Does it really deserve a 0? To me, a 0 should be a game that when you put it into your console, doesn't even turn on. It seems to me, that the Metacritic user scores are filled with nothing but angered trolls who are looking for a place to slam the game and vent.
I suppose, when it's all said and done, the scores on Metacritic don't really have an effect on the game itself. Black Ops 2 has already broken previous pre-order records and will most likely sell really well. At the end of the day, Metacritic serves its purpose well, to provide a place to troll and laugh at some of the clever things people can come up with.
Let's just hope Treyarch has learned a lesson from last year's debacle in which Sledgehammer Game's Glen Schofield called out the users for the obscenely low scores. Let the sales numbers speak for themselves, Treyarch.
