So many people on this site claim that reviews don't matter and that they have zero influence on them, purchase decision or otherwise. Every time a game they like gets a score they don't agree with it's only because those reviewers suck at life and don't know how to play, or they just didn't play it at all.
Yet these very same people who claim reviews don't matter will constantly read reviews and review threads anyway. They will also chime in about how a specific game that they love that got near unanimous critical praise has all of the review scores it deserves, only to go right back to claiming reviews don't matter when the next game that they love has a different reaction from critics.
It's as though people feel insulted when scores are lower for something they had played and really enjoyed and high when they coincide like it's validating or invalidating their experience somehow. I've never actually understood this. If you went in blind or simply decided to pick up a game that was right around the "above average" mark and greatly enjoyed it, that's all that should matter right?
Reviewers honestly do not influence my purchases, but I do take some stock into them. They make no influence on my purchasing decisions because I buy games that interest me, even bad games, as many games others find bad I enjoy (even though I recognize many of them as bad games), and I collect horror games in particular, and like to support devs.
But if there's a game I have interest in, I am curious of the general consensus, this includes critically and maybe most importantly critically, as people to put value in certain review places/people/general consensus.
But there's something of a broken public view of reviews these days that's basically everyone's fault (gamers, critics, publishers) that have caused gamers to not trust reviewers, review scores to be enflated and scores like 6-7s, or even 8s being viewed as meaning the game is 'bad', and a number of other issues entirely that just combine to make the scene of reviews both interesting but also overly important, yet at the same time, dramatic and personal.
I don't know how to describe it, but basically in my view where game reviews are in the now, the overall scene of game reviews is severely flawed due to a number of smaller problems that have developed over time with the video game review scene.