Anything lower than 7.5 makes me question a game's value; it has a lot to do with the school system, 7.4 and below isn't even a passing grade in my mind.

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I have to agree with Waffala, that's my general cutoff point as well. I've actually not bought games, even if I was interested in them, because their score was too low (e.g. touch detective, jake hunter, etc).

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If it's a game with a glorious background (Hot Shots Golf) I'll buy the game, regardless. There isn't a specific number that would dissuade me from a game, I just pick up the vibe from other players via internet forums/blogs or my friends and work off from there. A succession of damming reviews will shape my opinion.

Also: lol, Gamespot. What an amazing fall!

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I've played tons of poorly rated games and loved them, so I tend to ignore the scores. I usually just rely on my instinct in terms of what interests me, my past experiences with other games from the same developer, and what the buzz is on the blogs/message boards.

A high score can pique my curiosity for games I'm not interested in (Metal Gear Solid 4, for example -- I wouldn't have played it if it weren't for the incredibly high scores it was receiving), but a low score won't deter me from picking a game otherwise.

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I frown upon reviewers who have their written review sound like they are taking middle-of-the-road for the game, yet their actual score is slightly-to-the-right-of-the-road. Its weird... I never really know whose word to take for a game.

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It's best not to focus too much on review scores, but to look at what people actually said about the game. That's the best way to distinguish the intelligent reviews from the poorly thought out ones, which should be disregarded. Obviously the best way to judge a game is to play it yourself, but the second best is to read a lot of different reviews and get a sense of what the game's strengths and weaknesses are. I don't take any single review too seriously. I go to Metacritic and skim through a bunch of reviews.

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I probably wouldn't get a game that scored below a 7/10.

What I've never understood about games' review scores is their tendency to favour percentages. To me this has always been a bit baffling. To give a game a score out of 5 or 10 is easy and understandable, but how can you pluck a number out of 100 to score a game? How can you quantify one game getting 83% and one game getting 84%. What exactly does this 1% difference represent? What does a game that scores 99% mean? Unless there are 100 different specific criteria that each game is being marked on, then the percentage has got be a pretty random and pointless number, which would probably be slightly different on any given day that the reviewer reviewed the game.

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Most ten point review scales are really four star scales.
6 - *
7 - **
8 - ***
9 - ****

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I've noticed that Game Informer's reviews are pretty black-and-white. 8 and above is good, and 7.75 and below is absolute garbage.

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Reviews in general have become so skewed that when a reviewer claims to use a 10.0 point scale, you really may as well only consider it as 5.0-10.0. So, a 7.5 rated game really is nothing more than a 50%. Personally, I think it's an inherent problem in the gaming industry, at least for "professional critics"; don't piss off a game company or you and your company risk being reprimanded and losing access to those "sneak peaks" and "world exclusive insider previews," for instance.

I agree a lot with what Lord Bowser says above me. For me, a decent source to start judging a game's potential purchase is metacritic.com which as most of us know, converts reviews to percentages and takes a weighted average from many sources. It may have it's own flaws, but it's a good starting point.

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I generally won't play anything that gets less than a 7, and anything less than an 8 has to be something really unique and in a genre I really enjoy (for example, Folklore or Phoenix Wright). I'm more willing to go out on a limb and try something if it gets higher than an 8.

I don't have a lot of time to devote to games, so when I do play I want to make sure I'm getting a good experience.

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5.5 and up are passing grades in schools here (NL), so I'd consider anything below that as not worth buying, and between 6 and 7 as 'maybe, if it has something redeeming'.

That said though, in my experience some (semi-)professional reviewers are either quite harsh or jaded, and tend to be very critical even regarding games I find enjoyable. Some sites have reader ratings, and those are more accurate.

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Review scores are mostly misleading. Too many people approach it like it's a school grade. On a 10 point scale, 5 should be average. Anything above should be good to great and below should be mediocre to failing.

Regardless, I mostly ignore review scores. If a game looks interesting in design and concept, I'll give it a try. If it's an older game, I'll check the GameFAQs boards to get some user impressions. The average user probably has a very different view on games than reviewers do. If I played almost every game that came out, I'd be pickier as well, but I don't.

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i'll usually watch a trailer of the game instead of relying on ratings

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I stopped caring about game reviews when everyone gave Kirby Air Ride bad scores. Needless to say, I bought it and it became one of my favorite Kirby games.

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