Only 80%ish in Reviews?

I was thinking about buying it but the review ratings seem a little low based on my axpectations. What does the forum think about it?

Um.

Isn't 80% supposed to be GOOD? If not GREAT?

I can't give you my opinions on the game because I'm waiting for Friday. But still, general consensus is it's a huge improvement on Civ 5.

A lot of reviews seem to be fundamentally biased based on whether the reviewer thought CiV vanilla was an affront to the good name of Sid Meier or whether it was the best thing ever. I think if you like CiV vanilla, you can't possibly fail to like the expansion, since it's basically just more stuff.

But I haven't played the XP yet, so...

Why not read the myriad of impressions? Too hard? It will give you a much better view on the expansion than a simple number.

The general consensus seems to be that new civs and CS additions are awesome, religion is good but could be better and Espionage leaves a lot to be desired. Combat AI is improved by a little and diplomacy as well.

If you like Civ V you will like the expansion. If you didn't the expansion won't change your mind.

I think you also have to keep in mind that reviews for CiV were a lot overrated because of lack of playing/testing time. Reviewers wouldn't give CiV the same rating today (although it got a lot better since the release day), which probably has/had an impact on the expansion rating.

I only got to play it for a few hours, but I was really impressed.

an 80% score might be a good score cause this type of game is just not for everyone. + if the game is hyped like a new call of duty or skyrim its bound to get a 9 or so which isnt the case for this expansion.

From what ive seen the score could really be a 9 for me as it will probably double the amount of hours ive played vanilla which is a lot. It all depends if this game gives me some new challenges to face. Like losing on the same difficulty levels i had no problems with in vanilla.

SalemSage said:

Um.

Isn't 80% supposed to be GOOD? If not GREAT?

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Yeah, but in Game Review scores, people think 80% means "mediocre". Getting a 70% might as well be a 0% because gamers would rather pirate those than buy them -- anything below 50% means "don't even bother pirating." Is that wrong? Of course it is. It's ridiculous. Unfortunately, that's how the current market thinks. If you aren't considered the best damn game in the world by at least someone, gamers won't spend their money on your product, one because it's usually expensive, and two because they already have other games that they could play instead.

Vidszhite said:

Yeah, but in Game Review scores, people think 80% means "mediocre". Getting a 70% might as well be a 0% because gamers would rather pirate those than buy them -- anything below 50% means "don't even bother pirating." Is that wrong? Of course it is. It's ridiculous. Unfortunately, that's how the current market thinks. If you aren't considered the best damn game in the world by at least someone, gamers won't spend their money on your product, one because it's usually expensive, and two because they already have other games that they could play instead.

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For me, it's:
play anything (at least demo) that gets at least 80
play games that I like from gameplay videos that get at least 70
play games from genres I like that get at least 60

But I really like a 5 point system where 5/5 is something everybody should definitely play, 4/5 is something everybody should try, 3/5 is for fans of the genre, 2/5 is only for the hardcore genre fans and 1/5 should not be played by anyone.

I have no idea why we need a 100 point system when 5 points will do.

For a short overview of fan perception, this thread might help you.

As it seams, fans do like G&K more than "official" reviews (in contrast to vanilla CiV). But then, as the poll shows, mostly fans who liked or at least tolerated CiV voted so far. But even said fans where surprised by the expansion's quality...

pepe26 said:

I was thinking about buying it but the review ratings seem a little low based on my axpectations. What does the forum think about it?

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If there is one thing I have learned in the last months, is not to trust "professional" game reviews ever again. They are bought, biased, or shallow, or all three together, and the rating means absolutely nothing. Go by the user reviews instead on sites like metacritic and amazon. They are the only reliable rating sources we have.

Some examples:

- Crusader Kings 2. Metacritic user rating 8.5/10, Amazon user rating 4.4/5 = good game

- Skyrim. Metacritic user rating 8.1/10, Amazon user rating 4.5/5 = good game

- Diablo 3. Metacritic user rating 3.9/10, Amazon user rating 2.4/5 = bad game

- Civilization 5. Metacritic user rating 6.8/10, Amazon user rating 2.4/5 = mediocre to bad game

Of course many people may disagree with the user rating average and love a game that received a poor average. But that is the case with reviews in general. If we are looking for hints wether to buy a game or not, an average of hundreds or thousands of subjective opinons is the closest to objectivity we have available.

It also helps a lot to read the reviews and not just look at the numbers.

Games and movies I never follow crtitics. Problem user reviews though is that some will fail to put a spoiler alert. Alike they deal with human idea of what they enjoy. Such as I'd put Civ 5 as a bad civilization game, but a good game on graphics and war simulation. It would be an unfair one due to my personal likes though.

Diablo was review bombed because of its DRM, not because of its gameplay. Many of the people reviewing it hadn't even played the game.

Please watch this Jimquisition and never complain about 80% again!

tmthesaurus said:

Diablo was review bombed because of its DRM, not because of its gameplay. Many of the people reviewing it hadn't even played the game.

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This... and the ones who gave it 0's on principle are still playing now. Gamers can be pretty sensitive when it comes to certain issues, D3 is basically the same gameplay wise as the first two.

Necrotaur said:

This... and the ones who gave it 0's on principle are still playing now. Gamers can be pretty sensitive when it comes to certain issues, D3 is basically the same gameplay wise as the first two.

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Just like there are gamers who give games 100% on principle and may have stopped playing the game. That's why we look at the averages.

Funky said:

Just like there are gamers who give games 100% on principle and may have stopped playing the game. That's why we look at the averages.

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Really? You are going to count to count on one type of biased metacritic user scores to balance out the other biased metacritic user scores? Isn't that kind of ridiculous?

And if you think CiV having a low score is anything new, you should check out the user scores for the other Civ games. Are they higher? Definitely, but each and every new instalments has a lower and lower score, including the IV that was praised to the heavens.

Civ 2: 8.9
Civ III: 8.0
CIV: 7.8

7.8?! 7.8?!?!? Are you freaking kidding me? Is CIV supposed to be worse than the broken exploitable mess that was III vanilla? I just looked at the user reviews for G+K and there is one 0 because G+K, you see, adds features that were cut out from vanilla. Aha, sure buddy.

I DON'T trust user scores precisely because of that, and I can't honestly expect that one type of biased reviews will cancel out the other type of biased reviews, that's plain silly. I trust certain reviewers for certain types of games. For something like CiV that takes weeks and even months to fully evaluate how good it actually is, it's pretty hard for a reviewer to notice everything. I remember this very forum being quite euphoric the first week or so after CiV's launch as well, only afterwards did the did that disappointment creep back in. Of course now with the expansion pack it's slightly different, because it doesn't change the core but rather tweaks it, and quite frankly I think the press review scores so far are pretty fair. But it's again noticeable that they didn't have the time (or knowledge) to check out everything. I read the review of the German gaming magazine GameStar. Overal they gave vanilla 87/10, which is a high score, but did mention that no other Civ game has ever gotten one below 90. For this one they just listed the features, didn't say a word about the AI and gave it the exact same score to the AI they did for vanilla, with the whole xp receiving 84. Too many people say that the AI has been tweaked for me to honestly believe it doesn't deserve at least a single line in the review.

In the end of the day that's why I check out the impressions thread constantly. Not the reviewers and definitely not obscure user ratings.

Funky said:

If there is one thing I have learned in the last months, is not to trust "professional" game reviews ever again. They are bought, biased, or shallow, or all three together, and the rating means absolutely nothing. Go by the user reviews instead on sites like metacritic and amazon. They are the only reliable rating sources we have.

Some examples:

- Crusader Kings 2. Metacritic user rating 8.5/10, Amazon user rating 4.4/5 = good game

- Skyrim. Metacritic user rating 8.1/10, Amazon user rating 4.5/5 = good game

- Diablo 3. Metacritic user rating 3.9/10, Amazon user rating 2.4/5 = bad game

- Civilization 5. Metacritic user rating 6.8/10, Amazon user rating 2.4/5 = mediocre to bad game

Of course many people may disagree with the user rating average and love a game that received a poor average. But that is the case with reviews in general. If we are looking for hints wether to buy a game or not, an average of hundreds or thousands of subjective opinons is the closest to objectivity we have available.

It also helps a lot to read the reviews and not just look at the numbers.

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As others have said, Metacritic is a total joke. Same with Amazon reviews. People complain about critic reviews, but they're still generally the best reviews, because critics won't do something like give ME3 (an excellent game) a 1 out of 10 just because the ending upset them. That's something that dumb, overly emotional fans do, which simply ruins all these user review systems in the first place.
Anyway, if you want a feeling for how a Civ game is, you're best off looking here. Not like this place is perfect, but most people discussing the game here are usually rational (although most certainly not always, especially with V's launch).

BobDole said:

As others have said, Metacritic is a total joke. Same with Amazon reviews. People complain about critic reviews, but they're still generally the best reviews, because critics won't do something like give ME3 (an excellent game) a 1 out of 10 just because the ending upset them. That's something that dumb, overly emotional fans do, which simply ruins all these user review systems in the first place.
Anyway, if you want a feeling for how a Civ game is, you're best off looking here. Not like this place is perfect, but most people discussing the game here are usually rational (although most certainly not always, especially with V's launch).

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So being rational = liking Civ 5s appalling lack of features?

Civ 5 was a very pretty (hexagons and pretty graphics) and over all a nice game, but the truth is; it lacked A LOT of features that should have been there.
We now get those features in an expansion, that we have to pay new money for.
Thats all right though! If that is the only way they can make money and give us a continuation of the Civilization franchise, im all for giving them my money. Np!
Just dont expect me to be overly positive and happy about it, and if i can voice my discontent for Civ 5 being a dumbed down childrens version of Civilization, i will. And that includes giving the game a lower score on metacritis as well, since its not as much of a progression as the previous Civ games were.

You cant really argue against metacritics, since it IS peoples opinion. Period.

If Civ 2 was a 96%, and Civ 4 a 92%, Civ 5 is honestly like 75% max.

IMO:

Civ II - 95%
Alpha Centauri - 100%
Civ III - 70%
Call to Power 2 - 75%
Civ IV vanilla - 85%
Civ IV BTS - 90%
Civ V vanilla - 75%
Civ V G+K - 80%? (I dont have it yet but it should improve the game).

And thats being VERY generous for 3 + 5.