10 Games That Critics Scorched but Gamers Love

Let’s face it — critics and audiences don’t always see eye to eye when it comes to any medium, but especially when it comes to video games. One person’s 1 out of 10 could be another person’s “perfect 10” depending on a multitude of factors like personal tastes, their general mood when playing the game, being able to experience with friends, or any other variable that could easily influence the impression a game leaves on you. Today, we’re taking a look at 10 games that, despite a lack of enthusiasm from critics, managed to strike a chord with players and become sort of cult classics whose bright spots far outshine their rougher edges.

• Release Date — June 3, 2013
• Developer — Dontnod Entertainment
• Publisher — Capcom
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
• Review Aggregate Score — 70% (Mixed or Average)
• User Score — 75% (Generally Favorable)

Just a couple of years before the studio would become a bit of a household name thanks to the Life is Strange series, Dontnod Entertainment would release its debut game, Remember Me. With industry legend Capcom as the publisher, no less! Despite that backing, though, Remember Me largely fell flat with critics, who were quick to praise the game’s narrative and characters but were far less impressed with its gameplay (especially the combat). But Dontnod didn’t let Remember Me‘s middling critical response derail the studio, and players have continued to come back to the title and find that it shares a lot of characteristics with the studio’s celebrated later works.

• Release Date — October 7, 2014
• Developer — Creative Assembly
• Publisher — Sega
• Platforms — Android, iOS, PC, PS3, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One
• Review Aggregate Score — 79% (Generally Favorable)
• User Score — 83% (Generally Favorable)

Just about everyone who’s played Alien: Isolation is all too ready to tout it as one of the best games to ever use the Alien license, which is what makes its review aggregate score so confusing. Most critics heaped praise on the tense survival horror game, helping it become an almost instant classic in the genre, but a few outliers brought Alien: Isolation‘s aggregate score down with some unfairly harsh reviews that make you wonder if they even played the same game. Thankfully, a few off-kilter reviews did little to drive players away from Alien: Isolation, helping its deadly game of hide-and-seek with a xenomorph become one of Sega’s best-selling games that generation.

• Release Date — November 22, 2013
• Developer — Crytek
• Publisher — Microsoft Studio
• Platforms — PC, Xbox One
• Review Aggregate Score — 60% (Mixed or Average)
• User Score — 65% (Mixed or Average)

Most players remember Crytek as being the studio behind the PC-melting Crysis, but the studio also has an interesting outlier in its catalog with the Xbox One launch title Ryse: Son of Rome. This historical action game features some stunning visuals that really show off what the Xbox One was capable of, and its Batman: Arkham-style flowing combat isn’t bad at all. For whatever reason, critics weren’t impressed with Ryse, but it still managed to earn a bit of a cult following, especially once it declined sharply in price and got a PC port.

• Release Date — June 1, 2010
• Developer — Obsidian Entertainment
• Publisher — Sega
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
• Review Aggregate Score — 63% (Mixed or Average)
• User Score — 73% (Mixed or Average)

By the mid-2000s, Obsidian Entertainment had established itself as a studio that was great at delivering strong RPG experiences, even taking the reins from its contemporaries on some big franchises and doing a phenomenal job crafting a follow-up (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Fallout, etc.). So when the studio announced a spy-themed RPG as its first original IP, players were understandably excited. Unfortunately, a slew of bugs and some janky gameplay prevented Alpha Protocol from reaching the heights it otherwise might have. But that didn’t stop players from finding plenty to love about the game, including coming together to petition the game’s return to Steam.

• Release Date — April 26, 2019
• Developer — Bend Studio
• Publisher — Sony Interactive Entertainment
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4
• Review Aggregate Score — 71% (Mixed or Average)
• User Score — 85% (Generally Favorable)

One of the more criminally underrated games of the last few years is Bend Studio’s Days Gone, which is one of the very rare PlayStation-exclusive titles to not earn glowing critical praise. But while game journalists claimed that Days Gone was too formulaic or “stale” (owing to a general sense of open-world game fatigue that was beginning to quickly set in), players had the exact opposite impression, praising Days Gone for its unique survival game mechanics and impressive zombie hordes. Days Gone only continued to get better with post-launch patches, and the recent Days Gone Remastered re-release has finally seen the game earn its due as a phenomenal action-adventure title.

• Release Date — February 23, 2010
• Developer — Access Games, Gevo Entertainment
• Publisher — Ignition Entertainment, Aksys Games, Rising Star Games
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Switch, Xbox 360
• Review Aggregate Score — 68% (Mixed or Average)
• User Score — 81% (Generally Favorable)

Have you ever wanted to play an episode of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks? Well, have I got the game for you. True to its biggest inspiration, Deadly Premonition is a game that was criminally misunderstood and underappreciated at the time of its release, only to earn a massive cult following years later. Of course, unlike Twin Peaks, Deadly Premonition isn’t really all that good, even if it does have a uniquely bizarre atmosphere and some equally stilted writing and dialogue that make the whole experience feel like a fever dream. This is one where the critical reception is actually not off-base, with fans generally seeming to give Deadly Premonition a lot of slack for how delightfully weird it is.

• Release Date — September 1, 2015
• Developer — Avalanche Studios
• Publisher — Warner Bros. Entertainment
• Platforms — PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
• Review Aggregate Score — 69% (Mixed or Average)
• User Score — 77% (Generally Favorable)

Years before Avalanche Studios would develop Hogwarts Legacy and deliver the best-selling game of 2023, the studio actually cut its teeth making another licensed open-world game with the criminally underappreciated Mad Max. Mad Max‘s 8th-gen video game adaptation released in the same time frame as the excellent Mad Max: Fury Road, which helped it land a bit better with players eager for more experiences in George Miller’s vision of the post-apocalypse than it did with critics. It’s a little long in the tooth, but Mad Max‘s driving and combat do a great job of capturing what fans love about the IP.

• Release Date — January 26, 2006
• Developer — Square Enix, Monolith Soft
• Publisher — Square Enix
• Platforms — PlayStation 2
• Review Aggregate Score — 57% (Mixed or Average)
• User Score — 67% (Mixed or Average)

Square Enix’s willingness to experiment with different gameplay genres eventually found its way into some of the studio’s biggest franchises in the 2000s, giving us polarizing gems like Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII. A game starring Final Fantasy VII‘s Vincent Valentine seems like it would be a slam dunk, but critics were pretty harsh regarding the game’s lackluster combat. When it came to players, though, they were mostly just happy to spend more time in Final Fantasy VII‘s world and get some new lore, a lot of which has been deemed canon thanks to the Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy.

• Release Date — April 27, 2010
• Developer — Cavia
• Publisher — Square Enix
• Platforms — PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
• Review Aggregate Score — 67% (Mixed or Average)
• User Score — 85% (Generally Favorable)

Prior to the release of NieR: Automata, every single game in Yoko Taro’s Drakengard series was almost completely misunderstood, leading to a sharp divide between players and critics. That divide was never more pronounced than it was with Nier (otherwise known as Nier: Gestalt), which wasn’t done any favors by the stark differences between its regional versions. While critics blasted Nier for being a bland hack-and-slash action game, players were able to recognize its more ambitious narrative elements, and we’re glad they did. Without Nier, we would’ve never gotten one of the greatest games of all time via NieR: Automata.

• Release Date — September 14, 2006
• Developer — Clover Studio
• Publisher — Capcom
• Platforms — PlayStation 2
• Review Aggregate Score — 73% (Mixed or Average)
• User Score — 88% (Generally Favorable)

When discussing titles that seem to have been mostly misunderstood by critics, one game that always comes up is Shinji Mikami’s God Hand. This PS2 cult classic was an incredibly fun modern take on the classic beat ’em up that featured some ambitious mechanics and twists to what was an aging formula. And while this new approach to a classic genre sat well with players, it fell flat with critics, who (by their own admission) didn’t seem to really grasp how to actually play the game. With Okami coming back, it’s about time Clover Studio gets justice for God Hand from a more receptive modern audience next.