Critic Darlings Worth the Money
Metacritic 85 and up, and a BANG of 78 or better.
The gate is Metacritic 85 or better plus a BANG of 78 or better, and a game has to clear both. 192 do. Red Dead Redemption 2 does not. It holds a Metacritic 93, runs 50.8 hours, and lands at a BANG of 69.8. It is not a bad game. It loses the value half of the score, and the second gate says so. Disco Elysium holds a Metacritic 97 and sits at 74.1 today, and whether it clears this list moves with its price.
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What survives is the shelf where the reviews and the price agree. Half-Life 2 holds a Metacritic 96, runs 12.9 hours, and scores 98.4. Baldur's Gate 3 gives 73.2 hours at a 92.9, the rare big-budget game that does not feel like it is billing by the hour.
Coverage is the real weakness. Only a small share of the games I score have a Metacritic score at all, so this cut can only see games that got sent to press. An indie that never shipped a review copy is invisible here no matter how good it is.
