I just try to ignore metacritic or base my focus on the kind of game when I don't. The user scores ultimately get diluted by a lot of all-or-nothing votes based on unrestrained and often baseless hate/love for a game; I can't tell you the minute differences between what makes a 7 for me and what makes an 8 for me simply because I don't make a living off doing that. I don't know to quantify my preferences, for me a game is simply enjoyable or it isn't. At the same time, I feel like critics are sort of hindered in that department. When all you do is spend time working out what each ranking means to you and what certain aspects of a game are worth, you often seem to lose the ability to enjoy one of the many games that are unquestionably "bad" or low-quality but entertaining nonetheless and even if you don't lose it that's not always reflected in your review score. So yeah, metacritic is sort of iffy in general if you ask me. That's ultimately sort of the problem with rating/reviewing media like this.