Start with a quantitative analysis. A game has a 7. Is it a bunch of scores around 7? A bunch of 10s and some zeroes? Those will inform you some.
Then do some qualitative analysis. See what people are praising or complaining about. Check if the complaints matter to you. If they don't, you should try it.
> My point is that if a game gets exceptionally good critical reviews then a 0 is almost always a hissy fit, not a serious assessment
Hard disagree. Critical reviews are pure marketing. I played games that are aggressively mediocre that were critically praised before.
Is there a single game that averaged >80/100 on Metacritic which you would have given a 0?
Preposterous to you. You sound awfully judgemental of other people's opinions. Are your tastes inherently superior?
I didn't play BG3, mostly because I don't like D&D. If I played BG3, I would most likely not like it very much due to my predisposition to dislike it, due to my dislike of D&D. If I gave it a low score, you would dismiss my score as resentment? Sorry, this is bullshit.
This is hypothetical of course, since I didn't play nor rate BG3.
> Is there a single game that averaged >80/100 on Metacritic which you would have given a 0?
Me, personally? No, but that is more related to how I rate games. The games I played that I disliked the most got like a 3 or 4. Zero would be reserved to games that are fundamentally broken.