Confirmation Bias : Warframe, Destiny 2

Metacritic is one of those fun sites that gives a glimpse into the mood of the crowd. It also has some truth to it. Long ago I stopped trusting paid reviewers and review sites for much of the obvious – they are just a single view point of opinion without any backdrop to understand what kind of games / movies they like. The reason why I keep putting movies in with games is that I do have the Flixster App on my phone which I am constantly referring to to find showtimes and also get a glimpse of the mood of the crowd as well. It is rare to have a Critic score match a User score (much like Metacritic) and when those two numbers are very different then I am tend to trust the user score first and foremost. I have had my issues with Metacritic before when the user reviews were reviewing the “liberal agenda” of Bioware moreso than the game that was released.

This lead in is to show the difference between a hyped up, huge ‘AAA’ title, Destiny 2 which disappointed many a fan but was largely gushed on by critics:

Versus the little engine that could, small developer made title out of London (Ontario – yay Canada):

When it comes down to it most of the negative complaints on the Destiny 2 Metacritic surround the shallowness of the experience, the lack of improvement, many comments about how this is really a Destiny 1.5 not a Destiny 2 – you know, the same old, basic fodder I have been throwing at it since the PS4 release. Basically the low score represents the disappointment of the fan base – myself counted among them. I always make it clear how much I loved Destiny 1 and how for me Destiny 2 represented an opportunity to improve upon it. That same mood is where a lot of the low scores stem from. The  high scores, anecdotally, are from people who didn’t play Destiny 1 – and that is ALSO fair – because if you don’t have a reference you don’t understand you are largely playing the same game with a few instances of two steps forward and three steps back.

Warframe on the other hand – continues to give me hours of enjoyment, discovery, challenge and fun. I very much understand “to each his own” and even put the title of this post as such because I am acutely aware that there are other trains of thought on the game. I am now 30 hours in and finding deeper enjoyment in the systems as I discover and use them, and the endless combinations and customization that is available. I am going to wait to add my own scores to the above Metacritic ratings but you can already guess on which side of the spectrum they will be.

4 comments / Add your comment below

  1. It’s interesting to read up on the history of Warframe and its development studio. Many were doomsaying its failure from the get go, and it has soldiered on for four years finding its own audience and proving the naysayers wrong. I’m glad it’s finally getting a bit more attention and publicity alongside the interest in Destiny 2.

    1. It’s a top 10 steam game consistently right now. It’s a great game – does a lot very well. Lots of confusing bits too and is definitely geared towards a gamer willing to to do a bit of research and learning to get the most out of the experience.

  2. I’m guessing also when Warframe came out 4yrs ago and received all those Metacritic professional reviews it was a totally different gameplay experience then it is today. That and sadly seems like games with MMO like depth take years to gain appreciation.

    1. yes, that is true. Just checked the dates. Interestingly enough though, if you google “Warframe reviews” there are tons of glowing, recent ones. Also there are no reviews for the Plains of Eidelon, the most recent expansion. I suspect maybe they don’t update reviews post release? Nice insight.

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