Time to stray off topic a bit... IMO there's more than enough information to judge a game by that doesn't exactly require a review score or the cover. 
I'll try to explain why I agree with Peppermonkey that such a statement is a bit "sad". Similar to movies, there are things like genre, particular license (movie, comic,, book, whatever), developer, lead game designer, art content, soundtrack, theme, setting, story or a number of other factors that get you interested in a game and you don't need a review/score to learn more about those or form an opinion on a game.
Add to that that for each person something else makes a good game, to an extent that even "averaged" review scores (which at least tend to remove personal bias from individual scores a little) on their own, still don't allow you to form a real opinion of a game. I'll grant that only very few people will enjoy a game that gathers scores below 50-60%, but above that it more often than not comes down to personal taste. Nothing will ever replace first hand experience, reviews to me are just one of many filters that hopefully leave me with playworthy games.
Lets say game X gets scored ~70% (decent score IMO but some people would probably never touch such a game erven with a long pointy stick because of score alone), some reasons are: its not highly original, has a solid but simple story, only average quality cinematics, some small balancing and difficulty issues and also a few bugs/glitches. Otherwise its a good game in its genre, but reviewers can just find nothing special enough to justify a higher score. All fair and square and happens all the time, for someone who's a fan of the genre and doesn't care for anybody to reinvent his favourite type of game anyway, above score might not mean a whole lot though, he/she don't have to mind the political sides of games as much as reviewers do either! Bugs can be patched (at least on PC) or avoided (most console game bugs), story is (or should be) secondary to gameplay and who's the authority over what exactly makes a game difficult anyway? As long as the gameplay mechanics work, this could very well be like a 85-90% title to many gamers.
There's an inherent problem with reviews and scores, some things have to be taken into account by reviewers that often don't even matter to a specific gamer, one of the reasons being that most reviews are written for the "average" or "casual" gamer and also have to live up to a certain standard. Especially for more interested or "hardcore" gamers, or just gamers who tend to know a bit better what type of game they like, review scores can mean pretty much next to nothing, their definition of what makes a game good can often be quite different from the "average" gamer's...
Its not that review scores don't matter or don't help, they certainly do, but there are enough cases where I personally enjoyed a 65% rated game just as much or even more than some 90% rated game, simply because of personal taste. Taste can't be calculated or given scores, which is why I totally agree with Peppermonkey. Its odd to see people say they only play games with 9/10 scores or better, as those scores have no direct relation to individual tastes, sounds more like something an IRC bot rather than a human would say...
I'll try to explain why I agree with Peppermonkey that such a statement is a bit "sad". Similar to movies, there are things like genre, particular license (movie, comic,, book, whatever), developer, lead game designer, art content, soundtrack, theme, setting, story or a number of other factors that get you interested in a game and you don't need a review/score to learn more about those or form an opinion on a game.
Add to that that for each person something else makes a good game, to an extent that even "averaged" review scores (which at least tend to remove personal bias from individual scores a little) on their own, still don't allow you to form a real opinion of a game. I'll grant that only very few people will enjoy a game that gathers scores below 50-60%, but above that it more often than not comes down to personal taste. Nothing will ever replace first hand experience, reviews to me are just one of many filters that hopefully leave me with playworthy games.
Lets say game X gets scored ~70% (decent score IMO but some people would probably never touch such a game erven with a long pointy stick because of score alone), some reasons are: its not highly original, has a solid but simple story, only average quality cinematics, some small balancing and difficulty issues and also a few bugs/glitches. Otherwise its a good game in its genre, but reviewers can just find nothing special enough to justify a higher score. All fair and square and happens all the time, for someone who's a fan of the genre and doesn't care for anybody to reinvent his favourite type of game anyway, above score might not mean a whole lot though, he/she don't have to mind the political sides of games as much as reviewers do either! Bugs can be patched (at least on PC) or avoided (most console game bugs), story is (or should be) secondary to gameplay and who's the authority over what exactly makes a game difficult anyway? As long as the gameplay mechanics work, this could very well be like a 85-90% title to many gamers.
There's an inherent problem with reviews and scores, some things have to be taken into account by reviewers that often don't even matter to a specific gamer, one of the reasons being that most reviews are written for the "average" or "casual" gamer and also have to live up to a certain standard. Especially for more interested or "hardcore" gamers, or just gamers who tend to know a bit better what type of game they like, review scores can mean pretty much next to nothing, their definition of what makes a game good can often be quite different from the "average" gamer's...
Its not that review scores don't matter or don't help, they certainly do, but there are enough cases where I personally enjoyed a 65% rated game just as much or even more than some 90% rated game, simply because of personal taste. Taste can't be calculated or given scores, which is why I totally agree with Peppermonkey. Its odd to see people say they only play games with 9/10 scores or better, as those scores have no direct relation to individual tastes, sounds more like something an IRC bot rather than a human would say...
