Games with mediocre reviews

I usually don't take the fan base into account. There's so much hate into people's hearts. :(

The fanbase likes it, but HoliStar has a mere 54 on metacritic. Was it as good as the first Hatoful Boyfriend? Probably not. Was it as heart-wrenching as BBL? Not really. Did it feature a set of tightly written stories which made good use of both returning as well as new characters? Absolutely!

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Impire. It have mixed score on Steam and 45 at Metascore but until War for the Overworld released Impire was my favorite Dungeon Keeper "sequel".

Rogue Warrior (29 metacritic)

It really is bad. But is fun. It is the only game, that I know, in which it is better to shoot shots, like a madman who craves to die, than to use covers. Marcinko's phrases are so politically incorrect that they make people laugh. The ways to kill directly hilarious.

The only thing that struck me was that finishing the game at the highest difficulty does not automatically give you the achievements of the lower difficulties.

I can not recommend your purchase but equally I can not say that you do not buy it. I had a good time XD

Dark? It has metascore of 41, and I did like it. I played worse games.

In other direction I'm not able to play in System Shock 2, even though many praise this game through the roof.

Restaurant Empire is a game I really love despite its frustrating flaws.

Club Manager is the only football management game I know of that prioritizes financial management over football management, and that's just my thing.

Port Royale 2 is one of my favourite games and I like it more than its sister-game Patrician III, which seems to be a tiny minority opinion.

Medieval Lords is one of the games I'm most disappointed has been forgotten about by the world. It's really an excellent city builder.

Cities XL is actually a contender for best city builder for me. I know why many people hate it, as I too experienced the numerous bugs when I first played it years ago. And apparently people are still experiencing game-breaking bugs even after 4 re-releases, all of which the publisher marketed as major new releases despite next to nothing being changed. But since installing XL Platinum a few months ago, I've been lucky enough to not run into bugs in over 100 hours of playtime, and I've been able to appreciate the design of the game. The way resources are implemented makes for a much more satisfying experience than other modern-setting city builders. And I'm including Skylines in that comparison.

SimCity Societies, while not really great, does not deserve the hate it got. Its main flaw is that its marketing failed to distance it from the expectation for a sequel to SimCity 4. And a sequel to SimCity 4 it is definitely not. It's also pretty sucky in vanilla gameplay, as the various buildings aren't properly balanced. And since money is tight, the player either has to make nonsense cities for maximum profit, or go bankrupt trying to make the interesting communities that the game is supposed to be about. Its saving grace is that it's moddable, meaning it's possible to fix the gameplay by rebalancing the various buildings. Unfortunately, the game never got the fanbase needed for that to happen.

Sid Meier's Railroads is another one that got screwed by failed marketing. Fans of Railroad Tycoon were expecting a sequel, and that's definitely not what we got. But the game is pretty decent on its own.

Chris Sawyer's Locomotion is yet another one that got screwed by expectations. I can't really compare it to Transport Tycoon, since I haven't played it yet, but from what I understand people were expecting an upgrade and got a sidegrade. I quite like it, even though it's definitely flawed.

Post Apocalyptic Mayhem has very positive reviews on Steam, but 44 on Metacritic, so it sort of counts. It's a game that I thoroughly enjoy.

Traffic Giant has 57 from critics on Metacritic, but that's only because 3 of the 4 critics who reviewed it don't like the genre, so dunno if it counts. For me, it's still my favourite transportation management game.

Tropico 5 gets a mention, because while it's generally positively reviewed, it's often compared unfavorably to Tropico 4 and 3. Whereas I think it's the best in the series by far.

bump

I'm gonna say Alpha Protocol as well. I really liked it and would love a second game but that's never gonna happen.

Rage, everyone seems to dislike that game but i loved it. I understand the fact that the game was unoptimized and there were those broken textures but for the most part it run fine to my system and i love so much the whole post-apocalyptic atmosphere. One of my most favourite games by far.

Shadow the Hedgehog

From recent years:

1. Battleborn
2. Mass Effect Andromeda
3. Agents of Mayhem

Toren! It's such a mess, but it's a beautiful mess I wound up loving.

Angents of the Mayhem.

Beyond Two Souls for the PS3 and 4. I've never played Heavy Rain but I've co-oped Beyond Two Souls with 5 different people. It's pretty much a cinematic movie like Telltale but I loved the story and experience.

DMC: Devil May Cry also got a lot of bad attention but I really enjoy it. Characters are meh but the gameplay and action is super fun.

The Graveyard.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/27020/The_Graveyard/

DIRT 4
got to try it because of free weekend. At mixed reviews now.

Its actually a decent game. Everyone is so keen to compare it with Dirt Rally. While I agree - it bearing the name of DiRT franchise does bring certain shoes to fill after DiRT Rally. Because that game was magnificent.

But once you stop comparing it with DiRT Rally it is decent. It does a lot of things right and I quit enjoyed it. Bad stuff ? Tracks are boring, and car feels disconnected from the road. And simulation in this game is a joke. I drove hardest difficulty with simulation on. Second place in my first event. First place in my second event. But aside from these things its still an enjoyable experiance.
DiRT Rally - Ive played more then 60 hours and I cant seem to get into highest difficulty :D Tracks are crafted to perfection and car control is superb.. And in DiRT Rally shadow DiRT4 really seems weak.

So I dont think this game deserves all the bad reviews just for the fact it didnt live up to the hype after DiRT Rally ..

From my steam list.
Deus Ex the fall: 45 metascore, The game is a mobile port and the game was never finished! That is all i could complain about TBH. It was like a light version of the newer deus ex and i did enjoy it for what it was.
Husk: 44 metascore, The animations where bad and the combat was horrible but the visuals and the story was not that bad! I think most of the hate came from people who got it from humble bundle. Not a 10/10 game by any means but still not that bad,
Dreadout: 55 metascore, It is a low budget fatal frame! What is there not to like?! I think there was 2 things in the entire game i did not ejoy and one of them was because i/you where not supposed to stay if you failed the task.
Through the woods: A norse mythology walking sim made in Norway and besides the voice of the main character before they changed it i like it. Well worth the cash! Not sure how the new voice is tho since they did replace it.
Contagion: L4D type of game but i actually loved it! I mostly played solo since noone of my friend had the game or wanted to play but the only things i noticed was a lot of luck with item spawns and a bug on one of the levels when playing 2 man.

Jak 2 on Playstation 2. Even though the reviews weren't bad, most fans of the first game seem to hate Jak2 due to its much darker tone and almost completely different gameplay. But, I found Jak 2 to be a wonderful game with a world I genuinely wanted to explore and characters I cared about. It was the first time I'd ever played a 3D platformer that had depth beyond its gameplay, and it left a very strong impression on me. To this day I've yet to play anything else quite like it.