Halo 3 is the Best Game EVAR (unless you played it)

I have noticed an interesting phenomenon surrounding Halo 3. With it being easily the most over-hyped video game in existence (it had it's own flavor of Mountain Dew, for Christ's sake), the hype seems to continue right into the reviewing process--even after reviewers had to play the mother fucker!

Take a look at MetaCritic. Their reviews on Halo 3 are almost all perfect for the major game reviewing sites. Gamespot gave it a very pretentious 9.5 and some gaming magazines and periodicals gave it perfect scores (indicating they believe it is the perfect game above all others). However, if you scroll down to user reviews, you will notice that actual average, every day video game players think it stinks compared with everything else available on the 360, like the incredible Bioshock.

Now, I haven't played this game myself since I don't even own a 360, so you must take my word with a grain of salt, but it seems like the hype has somehow outlived playing the game. It's incredible that this is happening, since most game news sites are around specifically to buffer from fan boys. We are now seeing a turn around, the fan boys are now aware of their surroundings (!) and the game sites are earning lots'a revenue from advertising.

I am probably just paranoid, but I noticed that another game that barely came out had the opposite reaction: Quake Wars. I must warn you that I am a Quake fan boy, so I welcome all Quakes with open arms no matter how shitty they are (well... I didn't really buy into Quake 3 until some mods were firmly established). Game Spot was somewhat abusive towards the game. They gave it an 8.5 for a lack of voice chat and not liking the simplistic key bindings, something I'll really enjoy since I HATED binding keys in Battlefield 2. The users, however, rated the game the same or higher for how it played. It is the squad-based shooter that 2142 was supposed to be.

Before I can pass any further judgment on Halo 3, I will have to play it. However, I see it similar to the Penny-Arcade excerpt above. It's a chore I am putting off after buying a 360.