How to Read Steam Reviews and Metacritic Scores

By Lowstamp Editor · 2026-06-20

A cheap game isn't automatically a good one. Five dollars on something you delete after an hour is five dollars gone. Twenty dollars on something you sink forty hours into was the better buy. So reviews matter as much as price. Steam has plenty of them from other players. The trick is reading them right, because there are a few traps.

The percentages behind each rating tier can change. Right before you buy, glance at the latest reviews on the game's store page.

The rating tiers: read the share, not the words

Open a store page and the review section shows a label like 'Overwhelmingly Positive', 'Very Positive' or 'Mixed'. That label is just the share of thumbs-up, turned into a tier. 100 reviews with 95 positive lands in the top tier. About half positive lands in 'Mixed'. So instead of memorizing the words, think of it as how high the thumbs-up share is.

Overwhelmingly Positive / Very Positive: a very high positive share. Usually safe.
Mostly Positive: lots of good reviews with some gripes. Safe enough.
Mixed: roughly half and half. Tastes differ, so read a few reviews yourself.
Mostly Negative / Very Negative: more bad than good. Skip unless you have a strong reason.

One thing the label doesn't say: how many people reviewed it. That's the next point.

Few reviews means trust the tier less

The same 'Very Positive' means very different things on a game with 10,000 reviews and one with 12. Five friends saying a restaurant is good isn't proof. A thousand people saying it is. With too few reviews, a tier can be puffed up by a handful of generous ratings from friends or backers.

New releases especially have few reviews, and a great-looking tier can drop sharply once the crowd arrives. So whenever you look at a tier, check the count next to it. A few hundred reviews and you can lean on the tier. A few dozen and you're better off reading the actual text.

Very few reviews and a near-perfect tier? Be a little suspicious. It might be a gem, or the small sample got lucky.

When recent and overall reviews disagree

Steam shows overall reviews since launch and recent reviews from roughly the last month. When they disagree, there's a story. Overall 'Very Positive' with recent 'Mixed' means something happened lately: an update broke things, or people are angry about how it's being run.

The reverse, weak overall but improved recent, can mean a game that launched rough and got fixed with steady patches. For those, now might be a good time to jump in. So when the two clash, read a few recent reviews and find out what happened, instead of skipping on reflex.

Metacritic: critics and players see games differently

Metacritic has two scores: the critic score from journalists and reviewers, and the user score from regular players. They weigh different things. Critics care about craft, polish and originality. Players care about whether they had fun and whether it was worth the money.

So plenty of games have a high critic score and a low user score: well made, but it didn't click, or it launched in bad shape. The reverse exists too: a plain critic score and strong word of mouth. Don't trust the critic score alone. Look at the user score and the Steam rating together.

Only the critic score high: well crafted but possibly divisive, or a rough launch. Read more.
Only the user score high: not flashy, possibly a genuinely fun hidden gem. Often great value.
Both high: safe to buy.
Both low: however cheap, skip.

Skip bad reviews even when it's cheap

On the sale page, 90% off grabs the eye. A cut that deep can also mean the game just isn't selling. A 'Mixed' game dumped at $2.99 and bought purely because it's cheap tends to become one more game you never launch. Five dollars on something you delete out of boredom isn't cheap. It's five dollars gone.

So order it like this. Use the tier and the count to decide whether to skip. Only if it clears that bar do you look at the price. And for whether the price is really a low, check the tracked low and the stamp on Lowstamp. Good reviews and a low price at the same time is the sweet spot.

Look at the rating tier.
Check the review count next to it. Trust the tier less if there are few.
If recent and overall differ, read a few recent reviews.
If there's a Metacritic score, look at critic and user scores together.
Only then look at the price and judge it against the tracked low.

Buy on Steam. Sites selling keys absurdly below list price carry risks like fraudulently bought keys, region locks and revocation, and Steam's refund window doesn't apply. Saving a little on a well-reviewed game can end up gambling the account.

The tier is a thumbs-up share turned into words, and it needs enough reviews behind it to mean anything. Recent and overall disagreeing is a story worth reading. Metacritic only balances when critic and user scores are read together. And however cheap, pass on bad reviews. Filter by reviews first, time the purchase by price second.

A good buy isn't buying something cheap. It's buying something that fits you and reviews well, cheaply.