Mass Effect 3's Metacritic Problem divides critics and players

Dubious story complaints overshadowed by big gay elephant in room

Words: Tom_Goulter on March 6, 2012

Mass Effect 3 is out, and the critics love it. We love it (in a sensible, reasoned sort of way). You guys, being switched-on exemplars of 21st-century gaming, have some great points in the comments as to whether Bioware's latest lives up to the series' promise. But over on Metacritic, it's a different story. Aggregated critics' scores rate the game 93/100 – putting it in respectable company such as Skyrim and Minecraft – while the game's user score languishes at 2.5/10. That's a little worse than Postal 3. Wa'happan?

Above: This happan

While many user reviews have their beef with the game's ending (the one that some 260 players have seen already?), far more ire's directed at the game's earthling-on-earthling, man-on-man love scenes. Some, like us, wondered whether the choice to display The Love That Dare Not Speaks Its Name via the medium of waxen-skinned puppet-sex might not have been the game's high point. Others were less measured in their disagreement. Let's stay away from directly quoting semi-literate hate-speech, shall, we? This is a classy joint.

In fairness to the Teeming Masses, many users' criticisms are more technical, ranging from the game's darker textures to overemphasis on DLC. EA has acknowledged that at least one technical issue, the inability to import ME2 cloud-saves, is in need of attention; here's a workaround for that particular problem. Whereas if you feel that dude-on-dude affection's some sort of gross thing that games should stay away from, maybe this is the fix you're looking for?

Platforms:

Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Topics:

Bioware, Electronic Arts, Mass Effect 3

30 comments

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patbateman17 - March 15, 2012 1:48 p.m.

orrrrrrrrrrrrrr the scores are like that because the ending was a pile of crap dumping on the chest of the ME fan-base and all their hundreds of hours of game-time being led to believe that our custom decisions would shape Shepard's story...which surprisingly also should include a customized ending. That. Not the gay sex thing, that doesn't make a lick of difference. Although really - could the dialogue choices for man-time BE any more awkward? Hey soldier, I see you upgraded your rifle scope. Oh this old thing? Yeah, now it goes far AND long OOoh soldier. Dance with me awkwardly.
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IcePotato - March 11, 2012 8:22 p.m.

You are foolish if you think the reason the game is rated so low is because of the gay sex scene. I'm sorry we don't live in this hate filled backwater world you guys think we do all while you stand on your ivory tower of tolerance and pretend to be champions of justice for all the oppressed. The game was rated low for many reasons, and i would bet less than 5% of the reasons were for the gay scene. Blame reddit, blame 4chan, blame PS3 fanboys, blame the hamburger haters, but don't blame it on a hate crime.
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TheDragonDoji - March 11, 2012 9:32 a.m.

Go back a few years and this type of person would be loudly bashing the fact a game character is black. Gay is just still cool to hate
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Fox_Mulder - March 10, 2012 1:29 a.m.

It's either AMAZING because of story and gameplay, or it BLOWS because EA published it, gay sex, and day one DLC. Let's see..... critics love it, people who haven't played it hated it. I wonder who's being real and who's spewing bullshit out of their face hole?
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Bones96 - March 9, 2012 3:03 p.m.

It's interesting to see that Gamespot's user reviews average at 8.7, 8.6, 8.4 (for each version) and Gamestop's and Gamefly's user reviews for the Xbox versions are over 9 and 8 something for others. And most have over hundred ratings for each version. I'm not going to check every site but it seems like it might just be Metacritic. Very strange.
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redinsanity - March 8, 2012 11:54 a.m.

OK.... not played the game yet but I would suppose like the last two you could chose not to have a dude on dude relationship.... so, why do people have a problem with it when they don't have to stir the story in that direction?
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RedOutlive. - March 8, 2012 9:34 a.m.

This article is incredibly ill-informed. I skimmed through the metacritic user reviews, and yes there were stupid ones mentioning gay sex and day 1 DLC, but there was an enormous amount of flak aimed at ME3's plot, writing characters and how it was dumbed down. What is truly funny is how the whole professional game reviewing business is known to be extremely shady, with a reviewer from Gamespot getting fired for criticising Kane & Lynch which was all over the website with ads, publishers refusing to give copies unless their games are showered with sugar coated never ending praise in reviews. Dragon Age 2 in metacritic was exactly like this game (gaming sites praising it like there's no tomorrow and it was slammed by users), made by the same developers no less. Yeah I'm sure those angry kids are full of crap while the amazing websites do a great job of truly covering how games are like nowadays.
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winner2 - March 7, 2012 2:30 p.m.

Hold up a minute. To see that man on man action the player would HAVE to had made choices they KNEW were pushing them towards the bed. And then they try to say they're NOT gay? I think this is a clear indication that a few "straights" are having some serious issues with their sexual orientations. I hope they know there's therapy for those kinds of denial problems.
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Ravenbom - March 7, 2012 10:36 a.m.

I have ME3 but I haven't played it yet. Do we get an option of being a top or a bottom? Because I'm pretty sure my renegade Shep is a top. Or the rare times when he's a bottom he's a power bottom. As long as I end up with one of the aliens it doesn't much matter to me. Which is weird because I figured renegade Shep should go for the humans but my game keeps putting me in bed with aliens. Guess I shouldn't even talk to the dudes in this game if I don't want to end up in bed with them. I never post recaptcha, but "lablogy steamer" sounds like a dirty sex move that Salarians do.
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einhazard - March 7, 2012 10:08 a.m.

I am dissappoint there's no chick-on-chick waxen puppet sex scenes. Liara doesn't count she's an alien and doesn't have ears. That weirds me out for some reason.
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markmercado - March 7, 2012 7:41 a.m.

i thought it was fucking adorable
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patbateman17 - March 15, 2012 1:45 p.m.

That profile picture and that comment together is priceless.
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Rudorlf - March 7, 2012 6:38 a.m.

Not sure about the whole fiasco with the 'gay romance', but day-one DLC? Not as bad as Capcom, but it still feel so wrong in many ways.
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ZiltoidTheOmniscient - March 7, 2012 3:49 a.m.

This shit makes me ashamed to be a gamer. Gamers really can be the most horrible people in the world sometimes.
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R-ape - March 7, 2012 1:59 a.m.

This just in - homophobia in gaming.
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DarthPunk - March 7, 2012 1:23 a.m.

And thus I continue to feel justified in my decision to ignore all user reviews
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purple_omlet - March 6, 2012 10 p.m.

My only real problem is that I can't see a fucking thing when I'm walking around the Normandy. Why did the Alliance remove all of the light fixtures?
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Travia220 - March 6, 2012 9:11 p.m.

I can see why a lot of people are pissed off over this game. Reasons GamesRadar basically ignored through and through. Let's start off with the over sexification of the women in the game. EDI being turned in a Sex Toy. Then lets not forget about horrendous texture maps and pretty much the dodgy animations. The game looks worse than even Mass Effect 2, that's really sad, considering the age between them. The Voice Acting is incredibly piss poor. The Syncing with lips is also way the hell off. The writing is extremely poor. It's not BioWare quality writing, of course they went down hill after ME2. The ending wasn't horrible, it does however leave the game open for DLC which is exactly whats going to happen with this game. The fact the reapers are basically killed with a Deus Ex Machina.. which is something writers should never go near. Everything about this game screams piss poor quality. The fact that GamesRadar ignored a lot of these problems is just sad and makes me wonder if you guys are even game journalists are suckups. No, I don't think the game deserves a 2.5, it does however deserve a 7/10 at most. Simply because it's a huge step below Mass Effect 2 and even more streamlined. It's basically Dragon Age 2 all over again. Hell, they even brought in DAII Features that people HATED. Like the wave based Combat. Enemies actually not being harder in "Insanity." All they were was buffed with HP.
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KolbitosFruitJuice - March 6, 2012 8:10 p.m.

Its sad, really. These scores are coming from people who are sore and somehow offended about certain aspects of the game. Many people are angry about the day one DLC issue, even though its completely non-essential to the main story and was produced during the 3 months or so it takes to finalize a complete game. Other people are butthurt about the gay romance (hahaha, see what I did?). I've read a few of these so called "reviews" and they consisted of homophobes spouting their usual spiteful bullcrap. They claimed ME3 is "forcing" this gay romance on the gaming community. Never mind that its completely optional. And then there are others who are pissed about the games ending. Bottom line, there's no way in hell this game deserves zeroes for scores. You may not like the game for personal taste reasons, but to rate this game "utterly broken" or "abysmal" is ridiculous. I hate MW3, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize its appeal. I may feel all of the games are too similar, too uninspired for my tastes, but I know they are well made. They wouldn't sell 24 bazillion copies if they weren't. This is just a bunch of stupid people being irrationally angry over small issues in which they take no time to proper research on the facts.
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Howodd007 - March 7, 2012 2:48 a.m.

well said
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