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By that, of course, I mean actual, proper reviews, not meme shit. (Though, with that said, if the vast majority of reviews for any given game are just meme shit, that is, in and of itself, an indicator that I would be well served to give that game a pass.)
If I see a game that looks like it might be interesting on Steam, I'll scroll down to the reviews, expressly looking for negative reviews. Basically, I guess you could say that I'm looking for (good, valid) reasons not to spend money or (more importantly) time on the game. If I see more than, say, two such reviews and said reviews seem to be fair and not overly vindictive or hateful or "anti-woke" (starting to get redundant there) or whatever, particularly those that mention something like "wish there was a neutral review option" (and I agree with that sentiment), then I'd feel okay about passing the game by and moving on. (Or, at least, waiting for a [bigger] sale.) I won't necessarily write a game off entirely because of such reviews, mind you, but more and more lately, I use that as an "excuse" not to "waste" money/time. That said, if I see particularly glowing reviews (that don't seem like paid shills or whatever), then that will naturally counterbalance any conversely negative reviews I see, too.
Essentially, I'm looking for something like "devil's advocate" reviews. Like, maybe, someone who's played the game for dozens or hundreds of hours and is able to give an honest assessment of the game, good and bad. And, no, I'm not one of those "well, you played the game for dozens/hundreds of hours, so you must have liked it, so why are you giving it a negative review lawl derp" assholes, just because someone played a game for a long time then decided that they ultimately didn't like it all that much. (I've certainly done that myself in my time on this planet Earth, that's for sure. Though outside of this blog, I've never made any reviews about such games. Most of the time, I only "review" games on this blog that I actually liked.)
If I see a game that looks like it might be interesting on Steam, I'll scroll down to the reviews, expressly looking for negative reviews. Basically, I guess you could say that I'm looking for (good, valid) reasons not to spend money or (more importantly) time on the game. If I see more than, say, two such reviews and said reviews seem to be fair and not overly vindictive or hateful or "anti-woke" (starting to get redundant there) or whatever, particularly those that mention something like "wish there was a neutral review option" (and I agree with that sentiment), then I'd feel okay about passing the game by and moving on. (Or, at least, waiting for a [bigger] sale.) I won't necessarily write a game off entirely because of such reviews, mind you, but more and more lately, I use that as an "excuse" not to "waste" money/time. That said, if I see particularly glowing reviews (that don't seem like paid shills or whatever), then that will naturally counterbalance any conversely negative reviews I see, too.
Essentially, I'm looking for something like "devil's advocate" reviews. Like, maybe, someone who's played the game for dozens or hundreds of hours and is able to give an honest assessment of the game, good and bad. And, no, I'm not one of those "well, you played the game for dozens/hundreds of hours, so you must have liked it, so why are you giving it a negative review lawl derp" assholes, just because someone played a game for a long time then decided that they ultimately didn't like it all that much. (I've certainly done that myself in my time on this planet Earth, that's for sure. Though outside of this blog, I've never made any reviews about such games. Most of the time, I only "review" games on this blog that I actually liked.)
