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. 162 do. Red Dead Redemption 2 does not. It holds a Metacritic 93, runs 50.7 hours, and lands at a BANG of 69.7. 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 88.3 today, and whether it clears this list moves with its price.
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 97. Baldur's Gate 3 gives 73.1 hours at a 92.8, 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.
