Except that the metacritic user reviews were already 'defrauded' by an organized campaign to post low scores.  I find that morally objectionable as well.  Unfortunately, the nature of the internet and metacritic leaves little alternative but to fight fire with fire.

The name is "Metacritic."

Since when have the creators of something been considered critics for the purpose of informing consumers?

They never have. That's why there's a booming industry of ghost reviewers. Because your average consumer has no reason to trust a critical assessment of something from its creator when they stand to benefit from influencing them. People have no reason to trust advertising. Advertising is clear about its goals: it's there to influence your decision to buy under any circumstances.

"Reviews" imply a totally different kind of information. Factual, unbiased and with no vested interest in the outcome of the reader's decision.

Metacritic is convenient because it allows them to add to the weight of perception without saying anything. Or are DA2 devs really going to cop to the short-comings of their game? Of course not. Advertising never tells you "Play an engrossing, fully realized world....that has optimization issues and may not be fun for all gamers." Advertising will tell you a game will get you laid and cure cancer, if you let it.

Critics provide critical assessment. Metacritic is being treated as another form of advertising, under the guise of critical review. That's disingenuous to the consumer, no matter how you slice it.

Devs should be as willing to rake in the cash as they are willing to accept what "the market" thinks of their work.

I was in agreement with you until you got to this part. What garbage single player story? Can you give me a few better stories from RTS games?

Can you name me one RTS that has more interesting and more diverse missions?

Sterile multiplayer? Are you kidding me? It has a extremely competitive MP and a whole system to support it. Then it has many modes and user made maps for more casual players. There is nothing like it except other Blizzard RTS games.

As always, YMMV.  I thought the SC2 story had its high points and low points, and can see why some people would love it or hate it.  In that sense, it's a poor example of reviewer bias, since opinions do vary dramatically.

Personally, I thought the campaign started relatively strong, lost a little steam on some of the story arcs (Prophecy was surprisingly weak), then completely dropped the ball on the final arc.  In particular, the characters for Tychus, Kerrigan, Warfield, and Valarien were horribly botched, and came across as being melodramatic and forced.  There was a lot of production value in the final missions, but very little in the way of actual story or strong characters.  Even Raynor, which had been fairly strong all game, suddenly degenerated into sputtering semi-profound non-sequiters rather than advancing any plot or character development.

So the campaign ending on a bad foot filed the story into the mediocre category for me.  Mechanically, the missions were well-done, and it makes points there, but the story dropped the ball towards the end.

Heh, that's definitely a YMMV moment, because this is my least favourite mission in the game.

I thought this plot-line had potential, but was executed in a way that came across as corny.

I'd say Starcraft 2 is, more than any other Blizzard game, a sequel.  Up until now, they've really been in the business of making successors.  This is the first time I felt they stayed within the confines of the predecessor's territory, and felt they needlessly inherited many of its flaws as a result.  Still a good game, but not the genre-defining products I usually expect from Blizzard.

Happy to:
Starcraft.
Homeworld.
Battle for Middle Earth.
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.
Dawn of War II.
These are just the few that I've played.  Starcraft II's story is the weakest story Blizzard have ever told, however it features the highest production values Blizzard have ever produced.


This all depends on your definition of "interesting" and "diverse".  Starcraft II's single player campagin featured a variety of mission designs... all of which lacked any real strategic requirement.  You never out-thought anything or anyone - you merely did what the mission told you to do.  Seige Tanks here.  Bunkers there.  Build this missions new Unit to counter the Units the mission throws at you.  When in doubt, build Marines and Banshees and you'll win through sheer force.
Starcraft at the very least required the player to play the strategy card a few times throughout the course of the game.  Starcraft II spends more time setting up gimmicky missions with arbitrary requirements on the player than it does allowing the player to stretch their strategic muscle.
Again, it featured very gimmicky missions that didn't require a great deal of thought to get through.  Compare that to something like Rome: Total War or ever the original Starcraft, and Starcraft II is essentially a collection of the kind of maps players would make using the World Editor rather than a series of 'missions'.  They're simply very polished.


The gameplay is fine - and it would want to be, being it's copy and pasted whole sale from Starcraft.  The multiplayer environment is devoid of social interaction.  The chat rooms are terribly implimented and clearly shoe-horned in after the massive backlash they received for not putting them in the first place.  Apart from the chat rooms, the "GG" messages you get during the game, there is no social interaction of any kind.  It's sterile; they might as well populate the regionally restricted servers with bots, because you'd never know the difference.  They billed Battle.net 0.2 as a social network, and it has NO social features.  No profile customisation, no community to interact with - nothing.  You click "Find Match", cannon rush your opponent, rinse and repeat.  They had 10 years to get this right, and what we get is a gimped version of Xbox Live coloured Space-Cliche-Blue.

My issues are all reasonable issues to have.  Yet, no professional review reflected this.  Why?  Because it's a major entry in a major franchise from a major publisher who spent major bucks on major production values at the cost of everything else.  For example, Tychus was added into the game after the reveal trailer went public.  Considering the time frame involved, and how many cut-scenes feature Tychus, it's clear Blizzard spent more time ensuring their regional restrictions worked and couldn't be circumvented than they did on ensuring the single player campaign was entertaining.  It was thrown together.  Blizzard spent one hundred million dollars on Battle.net 0.2 and Starcraft II, and it received massive review scores despite being a mere copy paste from Starcraft with better graphics and cut-scenes, and a multiplayer component that is devoid of social interaction.  An 8/10 in my books.  Not 10/10, and certainly not better than Starcraft.
Production values = review score.  This is the issue.

I am sorry, but only Starcraft 1 on that list is legit. All other games have a crap story with 0 character development or choice that affects future (well I cannot remember the story for Homeworld). Even the raynor that decided to save Kerrigan is more believable then the death knight story from WC3, and Xel'Naga arc is so much more interesting then Burning Legion one.

Maybe try to play it on higher difficulty? I played all missions on all 4 difficulties and you certainly need to "outhink" to win. Starcraft 1 had either similar missions as SC2 with limited team or limited time or it had turtle and build 200/200 of carriers/BCs/Guardians and win. SC2 has maybe one mission that promotes get 200/200 BCs and win (and that one has a interesting twist with damage over time in most of the map). Every mission was unique in some way and asked for a different approach to finish. Nothing like that was ever seen in any RTS before. 

Rome: Total War is not a RTS like SC2. That game is a different territory. 

Sterile multiplayer? Are you kidding me? It has a extremely competitive MP and a whole system to support it. Then it has many modes and user made maps for more casual players. There is nothing like it except other Blizzard RTS games.

Well, it is a sequel. What fans wanted fans got. I would hate to have got a completely changed game (see what happened to DA2). They changed enough to make the game different but still similar (actually I see competitive players arguing all day that game was changed to much in comparison to SC1 and lost the greatness of SC1 because of it). As for social interaction It is a RTS game, if you want social interaction go to Facebook. Or better go to Team Liquid website. 

Well reviewers thought like many many fans that story and single player missions are great and like me didn't see a problem with social part (- lack of chat). I agree that the game is not worth 10/10 but 9.5 it is.

Homeworld has one of the best stories I have ever seen in a game, combined with music that makes you feel the story, and the great gameplay with a lot of variety from being out gunned by frigates when you only have strike craft in the beginning to navigating veins of gas to survive the radiation from a supernova to reach the enemy, it is a masterpiece.

I am not sold on Cataclysm and Homeworld 2. I got Homeworld by the time the others had come out, I did know about Cataclysm thanks to the trailer with Homeworld but I never purchased it, and I never knew about Homeworld 2 until I heard about the Warlords mod. I have played the demo, but am not really impressed with some of the changes.

Battle for Middle-earth really doesn't belong in that list, it is alright but if it wasn't The Lord of the Rings, it would have been terrible.

People are generally disgruntled from less than honest activity due to the entire professional game review industry as a whole.  The only reason this case made news is the developer company got caught red handed so to speak.  It's a natural backlash for something long coming.

I like The Angry Joe Show for honest reviews. Gave DA2 a 7/10 with great explanation and honesty.

 

Utter Darkness was amazing.  A chilling prophecy with a sad ending--but it didn't actually happen.  It certainly chilled me.  I think that's an awesome storyline.  And I could identify with it, because I remember the dark feeling I got from the "new" Kerrigan emerging victorious in Brood War. 

I don't take too much stock in storylines, though.  But I still like Utter Darkness purely because of the gameplay.  It's another "Hold back the barbarian horde" scenario--lots of games have those.  The difference is, this time you lose.  There are people who might not like losing.  There are people who just might not like "fend the horde" battles or turtling in general, either. 

Man, that brings back some Old School Goodness right there!!! Good call!!!