Yes, let's ignore the fact that I know people from those boards, and they've admitted to rating bombs.

Irrelevant. If a game is good, its rating will survive a raid of unfavourable reviews.

You obviously don't know /b/

You realize your talking about the internet here and an arbitrary score mostly added by a small sector of the whole base(In the case of ME3's so far, angry fans, people who just enjoy hating on things whether the game, Bioware, or EA, trolls, spammers, etc. But also fans and sympathizers)

And we've seen many bad games(In the context of Bethesda i.e. Morrowind) receive favorable scores over good games before(In the context of Bethesda i.e. Daggerfall)

Or any mix of the two.

Point is the user scores on Metacritic and beyond like IGN are woefully on the spammer/troll side and if not [censored] others have to do with it.

I'd infer the importance of this lies in the fact that thousands of people look to a score whether from the Outlet or Users and immediately judge a purchase off it because they presume their less likely to get burned rather than if they bought a 6.0 rated game that they actually read a review of. Some don't have that sort of time. Others don't care.

There's not a chance in the world I would trust the Metacritic scores for ME3. I was up pretty late last night, couldn't get to sleep. I decided to drop by metacritic and by like 4 in the morning, the score was already around 4.6 or so. Generally, you should complete the game at least one time before you submit a review for it, which of course nobody who's posted on Metacritic has yet. (Or at least not 99% of them)

Obviously not now. I mean that, if the game is good, the reviews will eventually average out to a fairly accurate rating for the game.

I just got it, but I'm waiting until this weekend since I have a good bit to do.

It svcks that Europe has to wait 3 more days for the game :/

I finally played some of the SP today, and I have to say....it's great. It might not be as much of a role playing game as ppl want, but it's still a really fun game. So far at least. I've only played up to the first time you go to the Citidel.

The combat is responsive, story so far has some suprises. So far it's just plain fun.....and the multiplayer is awesome.

Yea it's fun and I like the combat. The things you can do with weapons and armor make the game that much better. I just got to the Citadel too.

OMG. The Prothean rifle is now my favorite weapon ever

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/mass_effect_3/b/xbox360/archive/2012/03/06/emotion-runs-high-in-shepard-39-s-farewell.aspx

Not a single doubt now. Heading to the store.

I changed my mind and decided to continue ME3 and do my transfer saves later. Only reason I'm doing it is to see if there are any bonuses I get like ME2 when I beat the game. I won't do that with ME2 due to the fact that I want to start as low of a level as possible with ME3.

After 5 hours of play, the game is gorgeous easily one of the best looking games on the 360. I like the guns and the amount of weapon mods. It's not a ton of choices but it's more then ME2 had. I still hate the Avenger, worst gun in ME3 by far. Made the Mars mission really hard until I got the other two weapons then it got easier. The story started out slow, Mars was pretty cool and I like how big the Citadel is, huge improvement from ME2. Auto dialoge can be a problem at times but you still get enough choices that it isn't a huge problem although it does hurt Roleplaying a Shepard. I sadly could never Roleplay a Shepard outside of their alignment, I think it's mainly due to the 3rd person narrative that makes it impossible to Roleplay in my opinion. I wouldn't hold it against the game though unless you really care about it.

James Vega is underrated, I really like his character. The Development is slow but it gets better later on. I'd rate the game so far a 9.5 out of 10, hopefully that number stays high. Lastly I think the trolling that is happening with Metacritic will cause some changes to occur with that site. I understand people who are fans of the 1st game upset that they lost a lot of RPG elements from that game (Me Included) or just hate EA which is justified, but 0/10 or 2.5/10 is not objective at all. At worst this game gets a 8.5 and that's why word of mouth matters over any type of review, whether it's media or some central data site.

Yay, my CE has arrived. I haven't played The Arrival DLC. Should I? Does it force a decision on you at the start of ME3 or anything? (I have several ME1-ME2 saves ready to roll, but I was unsure if I should play that last DLC, to see if it had some effect on the start of ME3

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/03/06/what-i-think-mass-effect-3-from-ashes-dlc/ Warning! Spoilers galore.

The non-spoiler bit:
"As extra content, From Ashes is more towards integral than throwaway, but that only endorses the concern that it should have been in the game all along.
Tough one. You will most likely want [X] in your story, I think, but worthwhile a companion as [X] is, [X]’s simply not a game-changer – and at that price, [X] probably should be...”

There aren't any major decisions to make, no. All it does is bridge the gap between 2 and 3

The big thing about From Ashes isn't the Character that you get, in my opinion it's the place you go.

Arrival isn't mandatory although it does explain what the reasons are that Shepard is back on Earth.

Thanks - I confess I was kind of eager to roll out ME3. I was trying to be all blase about it, but I got unaccountably excited seeing the trailer yesterday and then holding the CE in my hot little hands.

I wonder how long ME3 is? Anyone know?

Oh, one other question - I have my ME2 saves in my steam folder/directory. Any trick to getting them to port over to [censored] Origin. I hate that I had to install their crap client.

you just made me pause in getting ME3.....

Well, looking at one EA FAQ site, it says it just needs a completed ME2 save file, that it will be able to detect it. I mean, as I think about it, they would have a big issue on their hands if the tons of people who bought the steam game or stand-alone version were unable to get their save in. I have my Steam stuff on one directory and Origins installed on a different one, so I hope it won't be an issue. Guess I will find out in a couple minutes...

That's upsetting. I don't have $10 to spend on an "integral part of the story" that isn't worth the price.

This is why I buy all my games on console. Don't have the chance something with steam or the computer will mess up.

Hopefully consoles aren't next.