It currently sits at an 84 on metacritic. The mainstream review sites have predictably sold out, and the ranks of the “professional reviewers” have been wildly inflated with a large number of extremely small and niche progressive websites giving insanely over-the-top praise.
But the real tell is how many fairly big YouTube reviewers didn’t receive review keys at all. Fextralife and ACG were both denied. And some of the ones who did get keys, like SkillUp and Matty, have absolutely shit all over the game. It’s not even close.
Watching SU’s painstakingly well-sourced video review after glancing through metacritic really shows the insane gaslighting that is still possible in the written media space. Also, the number of recognized pro reviewers who obsess over leftist politics on gaming has only grown.
Edit: the IGN reviewer who gave it a 9/10 is a tranny.
Edit again: I paged through a few more critic reviews, and I can honestly say I’ve never even heard of at least half these websites. I think big publishers are directly funding overly positive fly-by-night game review websites in order to manipulate metacritic. These are tiny ass websites with next to no readership, and yet they’ve received review codes ahead of massive YouTubers with millions of subs? It’s obvious bullshit.
Bioware died long ago, the last time they came to good writing was ironically the last DLC for ME3, since then it's just been leaning more into pandering to cover for their lack of talent.
I think DAO was BioWare's last good game. That's how I'll remember the company anyhow. Whatever exists today is nothing like what released NWN and KOTOR.