What game do you think is overrated?

[ZedClampet]

I was going to put this in the "Opinion you are all alone with" thread, but it's been closed

Anyway, I'm sick and tired of hearing all the love for Amnesia Dark Descent. It was an okay "haunted house" game. It had poor graphics, poor monsters that all looked and acted alike. It was consistently too dark. It introduced or made popular a couple of terrible ideas: constantly looking for your light source (see Outlast with its video camera and Alan Wake's ridonkulous batteries) and having the screen go wonky to indicate you were losing sanity. It also popularized the horror trope of having letters/diaries all over the place (this had been done in games before, but now every single horror game had to do it). The best thing about it was the organic puzzles. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the game, but give me a break. It's held up by people like it's the Mona Lisa of horror gaming.

The absolute worst part was how much it was copied by indie devs in every horror game made after it. Like the letters. There was a good reason for the letters in Amnesia, but that was missed by most indie devs who just started putting letters all over the place for no reason. In one game, it took place in a modern home, and I found a letter on a very modern kitchen counter that was dated 1937. What?

Anyway, Amnesia was good, but overrated.

 

[Knoxtane]

Honestly, overrated...Apex Legends. It's the worst "FPS" I've played, too spazzy and all that super fast movement nonsense.

 

[Pifanjr]

I personally really liked Amnesia: The Dark Descent and I normally do not like horror games (or movies) at all. For me the atmosphere worked really well, even having to manage your sanity and light. So I think it depends a lot on whether you're able to get immersed into the game, as the actual gameplay was pretty mediocre.

 

[Brian Boru]

the Mona Lisa of horror gaming

Speaking of "Opinion you are all alone with", great to hear I'm not the only one who thinks that sorta-smile is really quite creepy.

So to have a reference for rating, here's Metacritic's PC list—just work down from the top until you find one you think doesn't deserve its rating.
Or maybe you prefer to use SteamDB's algo rating?

Bioshock Infinite
So top one I meet on Metacritic is Bioshock Infinite, rated 94—which makes it #15 of all time.

Too high a rating in my book, it's maybe 80 at best, and in the 60s for my personal take. I didn't like the cartoony graphics style, and there was too much corridor combat to keep interest alive. They also seemed to be compromising on gameplay to accommodate some crazy story—but dunno, didn't wait around. Disappointing after the bright and cheery opening, a nice contrast to the drab and sleazy settings of earlier Bioshocks.

I suspect the crazy dev cycle over many years killed the game's chance for greatness—too many changes of concept, personnel and goals.

Dishonored
Top on SteamDB is Dishonored, rated 96—which makes it #36 of all time.

Also way too high for me—I could go with 80-85 objectively, while also being much lower for me personally. I just don't like dreary plague-infested settings, and while I play stealth style in FPS usually, there was far too much of it in Dishonored for my taste.

Game punishes you if you play it as a FPS, which is my main surprise with the high rating.

 

[Zloth]

Bioshock Infinite has the best in-game music ever! I might knock it down a few notches to 92 for the gameplay, but most of the story was really good, IMHO.

I liked Dishonored a lot, too, but I liked Prey quite a bit more - yet I don't see it on the list at all.

I guess I would call Diablo 1 overrated? I didn't like it much, anyway, even though most people liked it a lot. It feels silly to call it overrated just because the gameplay isn't one I enjoy....

 

[Zimbaly]

Honestly, overrated...Apex Legends. It's the worst "FPS" I've played, too spazzy and all that super fast movement nonsense.

I agree with it being overrated. Not just that it's like hey..... let's make a game based on a IP of giant fighting robots and have no giant fighting robots in it. It's like making a movie based on the Godzilla universe and having no giant monsters in it at all.

 

[Pifanjr]

It feels silly to call it overrated just because the gameplay isn't one I enjoy....

That's how I feel as well. I would never replay Bioshock: Infinite, it didn't do anything I'd like to do again and I don't care much about linear shooters in the first place. However, I did finish the game, so it must have done something right.

 

[Slasken]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is overrated. This game needs mods to be playable for me.

 

[Johnway]

GTA V - found it honestly all mediocore tbh. Then again i only played SP so i was going to have a pretty biased view on things. The game felt pretty empty and lifeless a vast area with little content, miles wide, meters deep. Whilst i understand the outskirts of cities isn't expected to be filled with activities, the city was where i was most disappointed in the game. Most of the buildings might as well have been rectangular mountains with so little to see or do there. i didn't finish playing GTA V saying that was an amazing experience, i left feeling empty/indifferent to the whole game.


Metal gear solid 2- Yeah i'll concede that the game has some great ideas and details but what kills me is the narrative and plot. Bloody awfully delivered. Spend more time watching then playing a game and comes with some cack handed plot pieces. I left playing MGS2 seriously pissed off playing the game. It wasn't helped that the pc port was crap, visually bland and gameplay left a lot to be desired. Case in point crap camera angles (presumably for artisitic and technical limitations). That said, I haven't really played the other MGS series but who knows, but lets just say that after playing MGS2 i'm having serious doubts about the other games. Enough to have second thoughts about touching them... Christ i have MGSV and i'm seriously not excited to get around to playng that one. I even have the original MGS on the rasperberry pi and MGS3 on the DS and one or 2 games on my PSP/VITA...

 

[Zloth]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is overrated. This game needs mods to be playable for me.

It's a Bethesda game! Saying it needs mods to be fun is a little like saying you need to have a monitor or TV to have fun playing a Bioware game.

 

[Pifanjr]

I finally thought of one: Final Fantasy VIII. There's something fundamentally wrong with a game if the optimal strategy is to avoid all fights, which are the core mechanic of the game. Even in the mandatory boss fights you can ignore every combat mechanic and just spam basic attacks. Though only after spending 5 minutes draining the boss of its magic while it ineffeticely wails at you.

Even if you somehow like the story, which is mediocre at best in my opinion, I can't see how you could ever rate a game that's this broken above a 7.

 

[ZedClampet]

By the way, while @Brian Boru 's post was helpful, I didn't mean "overrated" as in just review scores. I also meant overrated as in they are held in high regard by players.

Phasmophobia is another one of mine. It's fun because it's co-op. The graphics and gameplay are mediocre at best. There are several games that came after Phasmophobia that do just about everything better, but Phasmophobia is held in stupidly high regard by people.

 

[DXCHASE]

Elden Ring. First off, the difficulty of it being held in high regards by everyone is beyond me, its not difficult in the way i think a game should be difficult i guess but i also just think the mechanics get super boring super quickly. Dodge roll dodge roll in every single encounter along with a bunch of cheese ways of beating bosses and its just not anywhere near as "beautiful" as its made out to be.

Dont get me wrong, it looks good, i do love the concepts and the art of Elden Ring but i think it gets way too much praise for it and doesnt always look that amazing. All the memes, the whole "let me solo her" , the goofy ways of playing, the goofy loadouts used on yt, twitch etc. is just blah and adds to this game being overrated for me.

 

[ZedClampet]

Elden Ring. First off, the difficulty of it being held in high regards by everyone is beyond me, its not difficult in the way i think a game should be difficult i guess but i also just think the mechanics get super boring super quickly. Dodge roll dodge roll in every single encounter along with a bunch of cheese ways of beating bosses and its just not anywhere near as "beautiful" as its made out to be.

Dont get me wrong, it looks good, i do love the concepts and the art of Elden Ring but i think it gets way too much praise for it and doesnt always look that amazing. All the memes, the whole "let me solo her" , the goofy ways of playing, the goofy loadouts used on yt, twitch etc. is just blah and adds to this game being overrated for me.

You may need to enter the Witness Protection Program after this.

 

[neogunhero]

I’m going to have to say Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City (haven’t played Arkham Knight). Although they are fun and have entertaining stories for the most part, it’s just mindless button mashing mixed with finding secrets and collectibles. Arkham City was regarded as a masterpiece when it came out and everywhere it got 9/10 and 10/10 review scores. I think they are closer to 6 or 7/10. They are fun but get so repetitive after a few hours. In Arkham City, the plot takes a nosedive as they give you a huge empty lifeless open world to explore, so of course that puts a pause in the main story as you do side activities and missions. The combat is so mindless as Batman just magnetizes to the closest enemy, and you just have to time a button press correctly to counterattack an enemies’ brightly telegraphed punch. You have a few gadgets but truthfully just punching enemies is easier and sometimes faster. It also cracks me up when I hear people say “this game makes you FEEL like Batman”. I just don’t get why people regard the Arkham series as masterpieces of gaming and is a series that needs to be preserved for decades to come. They’re okay at best.

 

[Pifanjr]

I’m going to have to say Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City (haven’t played Arkham Knight). Although they are fun and have entertaining stories for the most part, it’s just mindless button mashing mixed with finding secrets and collectibles. Arkham City was regarded as a masterpiece when it came out and everywhere it got 9/10 and 10/10 review scores. I think they are closer to 6 or 7/10. They are fun but get so repetitive after a few hours. In Arkham City, the plot takes a nosedive as they give you a huge empty lifeless open world to explore, so of course that puts a pause in the main story as you do side activities and missions. The combat is so mindless as Batman just magnetizes to the closest enemy, and you just have to time a button press correctly to counterattack an enemies’ brightly telegraphed punch. You have a few gadgets but truthfully just punching enemies is easier and sometimes faster. It also cracks me up when I hear people say “this game makes you FEEL like Batman”. I just don’t get why people regard the Arkham series as masterpieces of gaming and is a series that needs to be preserved for decades to come. They’re okay at best.

I personally really liked the stealth mechanics in Arkham Asylum. I also didn't feel like the combat was just button mashing, especially not later in the game where you get more variety in enemy types at the same time.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

The Witcher 3.

Everyone loves it, I thought it was good but its not in my top ten.

Combat was fine to just OK, writing/story was good for a video game, but not all that really.

Elden Ring. First off, the difficulty of it being held in high regards by everyone is beyond me, its not difficult in the way i think a game should be difficult i guess but i also just think the mechanics get super boring super quickly. Dodge roll dodge roll in every single encounter along with a bunch of cheese ways of beating bosses and its just not anywhere near as "beautiful" as its made out to be.

Dont get me wrong, it looks good, i do love the concepts and the art of Elden Ring but i think it gets way too much praise for it and doesnt always look that amazing. All the memes, the whole "let me solo her" , the goofy ways of playing, the goofy loadouts used on yt, twitch etc. is just blah and adds to this game being overrated for me.

Sounds like you need to learn to parry.

 

[ZedClampet]

The Witcher 3.

Everyone loves it, I thought it was good but its not in my top ten.

Combat was fine to just OK, writing/story was good for a video game, but not all that really.

Sounds like you need to learn to parry.

Well, what's complicated about this situation is that I could put you and @DXCHASE in the program together, but you're the one he needs protection from. Plus, I'm sending you on a doomed trip because you slammed Witcher 3, and I don't want @DXCHASE to get caught up in it when the jet engines fail.

 

[BeardyHat]

Wildermyth.

"It's XCOM with a random, generated story! It's basically and infinite D&D campaign, the the writing is excellent."

The writing is like AI generated writing, mashed together as a word salad. Nothing really follows, the procedural nature of the story makes zero sense and adds nothing to the game.

The combat is extremely simple, the only thing it has in common with XCOM is that it's turn based with a few characters on the board.

That said, I do want to go back to it. Everyone loves it so much, I feel like maybe it and I just haven't connected yet, so I want to give it another chance and see if I'm wrong.

 

[Frindis]

Prey. There is a lot of good stuff with the game, but I got bored after I noticed you had a lot of fetch this and help that types of quests. I just thought it lost its charm around midway in the game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/480490/Prey/​

 

[neogunhero]

Prey. There is a lot of good stuff with the game, but I got bored after I noticed you had a lot of fetch this and help that types of quests. I just thought it lost its charm around midway in the game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/480490/Prey/​

I really want to love Prey but I can’t get past its metroidvania style core gameplay loops. I really hate backtracking in video games, and Prey is full of “backtracking to a place you been before because there was a locked area but now you have the item to progress”. I really love the rest of the game, but that is enough to put me off of any game.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Wildermyth.

"It's XCOM with a random, generated story! It's basically and infinite D&D campaign, the the writing is excellent."

The writing is like AI generated writing, mashed together as a word salad. Nothing really follows, the procedural nature of the story makes zero sense and adds nothing to the game.

The combat is extremely simple, the only thing it has in common with XCOM is that it's turn based with a few characters on the board.

That said, I do want to go back to it. Everyone loves it so much, I feel like maybe it and I just haven't connected yet, so I want to give it another chance and see if I'm wrong.

Prey. There is a lot of good stuff with the game, but I got bored after I noticed you had a lot of fetch this and help that types of quests. I just thought it lost its charm around midway in the game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/480490/Prey/​

Bring up the Witcher 3 in less than glowing terms and everyone comes after you from all sides!

 

[BeardyHat]

Bring up the Witcher 3 in less than glowing terms and everyone comes after you from all sides!

Witcher 3 is fine, just like the other games. I didn't really feel like any of the Witcher games were absolutely amazing. I have about 60-hours in Witcher 3, 30 or so of which are restarting the game twice and the last 30 starting it again; my wife and I had been playing through it together and enjoying the story, but the game never super grabbed me, like many other RPGs in the past have. Not exactly sure why that is, but it definitely feels a little overrated to my eyes, but maybe I'm just not seeing what makes it great.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Witcher 3 is fine, just like the other games. I didn't really feel like any of the Witcher games were absolutely amazing. I have about 60-hours in Witcher 3, 30 or so of which are restarting the game twice and the last 30 starting it again; my wife and I had been playing through it together and enjoying the story, but the game never super grabbed me, like many other RPGs in the past have. Not exactly sure why that is, but it definitely feels a little overrated to my eyes, but maybe I'm just not seeing what makes it great.

I had a similar experience except I gave it even more time then that over three tries.

2 was pretty good, I liked the first game but fell off of it towards the end at some point, the best thing about it was at that time RPG's were all about the good choice and the evil choice, Witcher 1 was the first game I played where in the side quests there were almost always no good choices once you'd found out both sides of the story. Does make me wonder now I think about it if a lot of people had Witcher 3 as their first Witcher game and so that kind of shades of grey approach to the quests seemed new.

 

[Pifanjr]

According to Steam stats, the peak download bandwidth used worldwide was 17.5 Tbps. The peak players online was about 30 million.

17.5 terabits per second is about 2.2 million megabytes per second. Which means the average Steam user downloads on average 2.2 / 30 ≈ 0.07 megabytes per second while online. There's about 132 million active users per month, which implies people are on average online on Steam for about 30/132 ≈ 23% of the day (I assume most of that is from people who have Steam set up to launch when the computer starts). This means that per year, the average Steam user downloads 0.07 * 0.23 * 3600 * 24 * 365 ≈ 500,000 megabytes, or 500 gigabytes of data.

I'm not sure if Steam’s download bandwidth consists only of game downloads, but I'll assume those make up by far the largest share. If we then assume the average game is about 40 gigabytes in size, the average Steam user downloads about 500 / 40 ≈ 12 games a year or roughly one new game a month.

I suspect a sizeable percentage of gamers primarily play games that have gotten a lot of attention (and which look pretty), which might explain why some games get a lot of praise even though they might be fairly mediocre in terms of gameplay.