Do you have a favorite game that you think did not get a fair shake by the critics?

Bad Boys Miami Takedown.

I played it. And then I played Gears of War. And I saw the same game more or less. :P

http://www.gamespot.com/the-neverhood/reviews/the-neverhood-review-2543926/

Almost everything the reviewer says is the opposite of true. There is an exception to this. The reviewer describes how you can't see objects once you pick them up. That is true, I think. The rest - I painfully disagree with. (Yes, this is my opinion, and the review is his opinion. "Opposite of true" is a figurative statement. Relax. I know this is all subjective.)

There are some puzzle spoilers in the review, so I would not recommend reading it unless you've beaten the game.

http://www.gamespot.com/sonic-cd-1995/

Nearly everyone says Sonic CD is absolutely horrible. I played it as a kid I still like it now. I mean people give it great reviews on the remake version, but everyone seemed to hate the original.

Sonic CD is a fantastic game, it's Basically Sonic 1 but multiplied by 10 times about what made it good

The people who hate on it are probably too stupid to understand how to complete Tidal Tempest or Wacky Workbench and then say that the "Level design sucks"

I thought that Avatar the game was unfairly reviewed. It is not super amazing or anything, but I had plenty of fun playing through it. I thought it deserved more than a 50-something metascore.

Most critics seem biased against games adapted from movies.
Sure, most do suck, but that doesn't mean they all do.

As a games reviewer and non-stupid dumb shit I felt there was a bit of generalizing in that statement, so I looked up the games you mentioned and all of them got pretty decent reviews (between 6 and 8). Of course, if you subscribe to the moronic IGN scale of 6-10 that's bad, but that's pretty good for three niche titles that don't really have a place in the States.

I was completely disheartened by this sentence on Wikipedia though: "Raiden IV has received below average review scores upon its U.S. release, with both IGN and the Official Xbox Magazine scoring it a 6 out of 10." How is 6 below average?

Alpha Protocol. Alpha Protocol. Alpha Protocol. Alpha Protocol. Alpha Protocol.

I'd blame it slightly on nostalgia, slightly on the Sega CD. You just bought an expensive addon that's suppose to have all these mind blowing better games for it, and you get an improved variation on Sonic 1. Nowadays it doesn't matter because it's all emulation, but it wasn't an impressive showcase for the Sega CD and that probably damaged the reputations.

Uh. I should probably stop defending critics and start naming games, cause I like this thread and it doesn't deserve arguments.

Team Buddies. How did that get an average of 4/10? It's the most fun PS1 game ever.

I LOVED this game, and I heard it had a sequel(never played it though). I liked the video tapes you could accumulate, and the main character, as well as the insanely LONG hall of knowledge(which was even READABLE, though[again] insanely long and I don't know if anyone ever read it all.). One of my favorite puzzles is the dynamite one, and I wish I could find the time to play it again. Definitely a must play for adventure fans, imo.

Well, that's simply an empirical fact. You can look up the average review scores for major video game publications on Metacritic. The overall average for all publications appears to be around 7.4 out of 10, so anything under 7.4 is below average.

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/publication/popular

Edit: The average IGN score is actually somewhat low at 6.9 out of 10.

First off, was the beginning bit really needed? ;) :P

Yes, MANY reviewers review some games good or bad depending on if the game makers paid them off with ad dollars(and bonus swag) or not, and some review games(bash/mock/etc) in a certain fashion(for the most part) to gain views, but there ARE some insightful reviewers out there who DO try to paint a pretty good picture of how the game played out FOR THEM.....key words, as no reviewer(even the good ones) leaves his written mark behind without a little bias, but some do write reviews that(when combined with other quality reviews from the same or opposing viewpoint or reviewing style) help one in some small way to gauge if a game will be liked by them.

In the end, find reviewers who write as fairly as possible from both points of view on a game you are thinking of getting and read their reviews and compare.....add to this some suggestions or info from friends and game play videos/demo game play & you should be all set imo.
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Also if I may ask, how good is Nier(to you)? Also is it real-time RPG or turn based like FF games? Action oriented or no? etc......

Too Human and Two Worlds.

Wait, people disliked Neverhood?

Anyway, I pretty much agree with Roman.
The problem with current generation game journalism is that everyone and their dog calls themselves a critic. The result is that there is no common standard and most reviews simply reflect the inherent bias of the reviewer. There's no real way of telling whether you're going to find the game the same as the reviewer did.
i.e. a contemporary reviewer is likely to put heavy emphasis on graffix, whereas for me it plays a very little role. They seem to not mind (they in fact seemingly prefer) linear gameplay, whereas for me, it's a heavy drawback.

Oh and then there's obviously the issue with the publishers paying off every single commercial publication / reviewing body. It seems that they practically write the reviews for the publication. And then you obviously have the issue with the employees writing their own 10/10 reviews for the game - anyone recall the Telltale Games and the DO:A2 reviews?

edit: tl;dr: my main quarrel is with games being rated too high, rather than too low. The end result is what spindown mentioned - anything under 7.4 is below average. Ultimately the games that are rated fairly / unfavourably are considered inferior to the overrated blockbusters.