I stopped trusting professional reviews about 30 years ago. Not that I trust non professional reviews much more.

tbh if game devs released demo's of there games like they used to for free people wouldnt need these reviews or ask for refunds on game the sad thing is the only way to play a demo of the game is to either pay steam for early access or p re order the game for a BETA, its why people pirate games why should they spend money for a demo just cos developers are greedy asshats.

If anything, the game has 56 points on metacritic (user score). Anyone trusting the metascore is delusional.

It also have 5.6 points on Metacritic 's user rating, 44% positive rating on Steam, and not to forget a 3.2 overall rating on gOg.com

And, the Steam rating drops everyday. People are sick of Paradox's typical MO for releasing games.

Paradox has released music DLC for Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Universalis IV for years. If you're gonna moan at least be accurate.

Yeah, and I din't mind those music DLC. Music is wonderful especially for CKII.

But never before, they got the balls to cut out most of the music tracks out of the game to sell it as DLC. The main game have 4 tracks, that's it. the rest you have to buy. thats fucking new!!!

Hmm, if there's one thing I trust less than review scores from professional critics' websites, it's review scores from "the community", be that on Steam, Metacritic, or even GOG.com. It feels to me like 99% of player reviews are motivated by something that is entirely irrelevant to whether I will like a game. Some axe to grind with the publisher, payback for having hoped for a different kind of game, 0-star ratings because of some personal niggle, 5-star fanboy ratings… I don't really read professional reviews, but I also regret almost every time I decide to still read a player review.

The point being that you need to read a review to really know. It's a truism that everybody's tastes are different, and a score tells you nothing about whether a game matches your tastes. (Neither do selected quotes as in this news post.) A well-written review does, and it's usually very easy to tell from just the first few sentences whether a reviewer, professional or not, will be giving you any worthwhile information. And if a professional review is not being honest, it's also easy to tell, because you'll be looking for bits of objective information rather than impressions, and if those are missing completely, something's amiss.

What a lot of people seem to forget when debating the trustworthiness of professional vs. player reviews: player reviews are completely anonymous, and they have nothing to lose if their credibility is ruined. Most people reading their reviews won't even know. Professional critics at least have their name attached to their reviews and put their career on the line, and probably more importantly, if a professional site gets caught breaking journalistic standards, they risk losing their readers, and with them their ad money.

Your math doesn't add up. The soundtrack has 21 tracks. Epirus flavour pack has one of those tracks and the Hellenisitic pack has 5 tracks. That leaves 15 tracks.

I myself can't really confirm if you're right or not. I din't waste my money on this pile of shit game. I simply pirated the game with all the DLC and music.

But you're saying the main game has 15 tracks ? if so then my bad. ;)

You're getting a bit construed here with what I said. Don't make a truth where there was none. I said nothing of censorship. If you want to pay attention to a bogus review like "this game just sucks, because I don't like it", then you're not even being fair to yourself and your ability to judge a game for all that it's worth. Look at a game from outside the box. It's not that hard to comprehend.

A lot of reviews aren't just biased, they're shallow. If you want a good review, regardless of how amateur or professional it is, it needs to get rid of the personal taste jargon because that undermines the quality of a product. All reviews should be taken with a grain of salt, and a single review, even half a dozen or more, should never just be all that someone bases their own decision off of if they can't think for themselves and give a game a shot without a fair opinion. If literally, all reviews for a game were terrible, it's a good chance the game is just that. If they're mixed, that's up to the buyer. The highest rated games have haters, all of them. You can never please everyone. Personal taste ruins the taste of games for people who let opinions of others get the best of them.

Don't be a tool to another person's opinions unless it's actually looked at in a neutral light, or close to it, and if reviews are what you base your buying decisions on, but you really wanted the game, seek out more reviews until your satisifed for or against the game. And yes, that is very possible. In this over-saturated market of biased reviews, it's hard to imagine such a thing existing. But there is such a thing as fair reviews.

Also, I'm far from hypocritical. You though are far from a good analyzer of a forum comment. I never said all reviews, now did I? Some bad reviews are good. But it's important to like I said prior, weigh in on many reviews instead of one, and see a game for what it is, good or bad. You can also accomplish that goal in today's world within record time as it's not hard to locate reviews. No game is perfect. But I can also guarantee you that the majority of people who slander a title within hours of a game coming out did NOT spend a lot of justifiable time with a title, which is why no one should pay much attention to an over-saturation of bad reviews unless a game is literally broken upon launch, which this game wasn't.

Generally speaking, I get what I want, and don't give a rat's ass about reviews. I can't wait to dive into Imperator, and I know it will be supported for a while to come. If you don't want to play it, then you're wasting your time in this forum. If you want to get it eventually, good on you.

How far? lol

I love how you aim at the negative reviewers with statements like, "majority of people who slander a title" while never stating anything negative about the "5/5 BEST GAME EVAH!" reviews, while claiming that we need to look at reviewers who, "looked at in a neutral light". It's clear as day that you are not neutral. Again, you are being hypocritical.

As to your statements about biases in reviews, well, I hate to break it to you but all reviews are biased. That is because they're based on the reviewers' opinions about the game, which, again are inherently biased. However, you are correct in your statements about not looking at a singular nor handful of reviews. That is why review sites have average score amongst all reviewers. And, it's never a good sign when over 50% of the reviewers are negatively reviewing a game.

However, I would recommend you take your own advice and, "Don't make a truth where there was none." A lot of what you stated was quite untruthful.

Why waste time reading reviews when you can watch gameplay and judge for yourself? o.O