Lately, I kind of feel like game criticism is heading towards a turning point. Yeah, you can talk about the ridiculous Uncharted 3 debacle, but on the whole, I feel like fans rage less over "good" reviews, and media outlets are less afraid of giving simply "good" reviews. Now, I don't have any hard numbers to back any of this up, but I feel the average Metacritic scores of big blockbuster games is lower compared to previous years. Of course, maybe the games are just plain worse, or we're experiencing franchise fatigue as we drudge further on through this console cycle. Or maybe, just maybe, reviewers are shying away from the 8-10 scale. I also also feel that more and more outlets are leaning towards review scales with less granularity, which results in less fans arguing over the petty differences between a 92 and 93. Or who knows, maybe the 'average' Internet-going video game enthusiast has just grown up. I remember the dumb shit I used to write on the Nsider forums when I was a teenager. Sometimes, you just grow out of it. And in some cases, time is the only cure.