Portal 2’s release has been greeted largely with high praise from critics whose reviews have pushed its average up to 95% on review-aggregation site Metacritic over the last couple of days. However, user reviews on Metacritic suggest that not all is as it seems.
Currently, user reviews on the site of the PlayStation 3 version of Portal 2 stand at 68%, while the Xbox 360 and PC average scores stand at 73% and 67% respectively. Reading through user comments, it’s clear that some players are disappointed about certain aspects of the game, but are more annoyed about the way in which it was marketed.
Complaints of a short single player campaign and dated graphics are two of the reasons why Portal 2 seems to have been scored so averagely, but the biggest issue appears to be with the ARG (alternate reality game) promotion that ran in the lead up to launch. Via Steam, players interested in getting their hands on Portal 2 early could buy the “Potato Sack” pack; a set of 13 indie games that they could purchase at the reduced price of $38.72. “Help Release Portal 2 Early!” by “rebooting” the GLaDOS computer, said Valve.
Keen to get their hands on Portal 2 early, a lot of people have apparently put in a lot of man hours into the likes of “Potato Sack” games such as Super Meat Boy, and many thought that the game would be released significantly earlier than its official release date. As it materialized, Portal 2 was released on Steam on April 18, not too distant from its official 7 A.M. launch time on April 19, 2011. Judging by the Metacritic user score and comments on Valve’s official forums, it seems that some players feel they’ve been duped with empty promises and given a poor incentive for buying the indie pack.
It’s quite ridiculous that some players feel they need to bring down the score of Portal 2, though, which should reflect the game and not the way it was promoted. Metacritic seems to be becoming a place where masses of users can quite easily bring down scores for a variety of reasons that don’t necessarily tie-in with their opinion of the actual game. It will be interesting to see if Valve or EA tries another marketing trick like this; in the case of the ARG, it seems as though the plan back-fired.