As far as I'm concerned they do. But my opinion doesn't decide the rating of a game any more than yours that's it's supposedly a better game than bad rats.
It's a product of everyone who votes giving their opinion, and the entire steam userbase has come to the consensus that Overwatch 2 is a particularly egregious example of it.
It cannot possibly be a review bomb when the reviews are legitimate opinions based on what the game is.
the previously referenced games all sit above 80% positive and yet have the exact same problems that you cite as OW2's reason for being bad
legitimate opinions
"the zeitgeist has told them that the game is bad" is not a legitimate reason for not liking OW2, hence accusations of review bombing
if you think there are legitimate reasons OW2 deserves the rating it has, by all means please provide them, but so far all you've given me are #badthings that also apply to basically all the popular F2P games on Steam.
it’s the game they gave me to replace the game i purchased.
if i bought a toyota camry, and 2 years later toyota said “sorry we can’t let you continue using your camry, here’s a corolla” you better fucking believe i’d be trashing toyota in every public space possible to warn potential customers.
Those games are not nearly as aggressive in their attempts to get you to buy shit. CSGO? a tiny ass fucking button to buy Prime. TF2? Don't even remember seeing a shop button.
OW2? Makes the worst, money hungry mobile free-to-play blush with how aggressive it tries to sell you shit.
tf2 drops crates every 30 minutes that's literally just an advert for the in-game store (which has a dedicated button pretty clearly labelled on the main menu)
leaving a negative review because of that would by definition be review bombing, because at that point you're not reviewing the game, but external context that surrounds it
"i liked overwatch 1" is not a valid review of the game overwatch 2, and people leaving reviews to that effect en-masse is pretty textbook review bombing
if you're reviewing specific things you don't like, that's reviewing a product
leaving a negative review because "OW1 was killed off" isn't doing that
if you want to discuss specific things you don't like, please provide some that would reasonably justify OW2 being literally the worst reviewed game on steam rn
leaving a negative review because "OW1 was killed off" isn't doing that
Leaving a review because "OW1 was killed off" and the intended transition route was a drastically inferior product, is in fact reviewing a product.
Context is actually an important part of reviews. Orcarina or Time looks like a shit game today, and needs the context of being a late 90's innovator to fully appreciate it. Likewise, a BoTW clone would look fantastic, a game changer, even...if a certain 2017 game hadn't already set the benchmark.
Calling something an inferior version of its predecessor, which was cynically shut down to push people to this inferior product, is worthy review information. It tells people that a superior product existed, and all this new product is, is the enshittification of it.
ow1 was shut down to avoid splitting the playerbase. when kaplan went on record saying that he'd fought to get ow1 owners a copy of ow2 for free everybody loved it, but now it's bad, actually? yes that makes sense
Orcarina or Time looks like a shit game today
comparing the entire landscape of gaming to a game is a very different thing to comparing it to a specific game
it would be like if somebody reviewed Baldur's Gate 3 by saying it was bad just because they liked the source powers from Divinity 2. as part of a review maybe it works, sure but as the bedrock and sole item of substance, it's useless.
your entire argument so far has been "I preferred the previous game therefore OW2 deserves to be the worst reviewed game on steam". even ignoring the fact that you've failed to articulate any differences past a vague notion of not liking that it's free-to-play, that's an almost laughably braindead take
And making comparisons between the two products is perfectly valid.
ow1 was shut down to avoid splitting the playerbase.
I'm sorry, are you an Activision/Blizzard employee?
I ask because only one of their employees could come up with such a bullshit statement. The core gameplay loops aren't different enough to cause that kind of split, and OW2 Is free-to-play. Anybody that wanted to voluntarily jump from OW1 to OW2 could have freely done so at literally no cost, if they so wanted.
They shut down OW1 to a) pump up the numbers for OW2 and b) to get OW1 players forcibly exposed to their F2P market.
when kaplan went on record saying that he'd fought to get ow1 owners a copy of ow2 for free everybody loved it, but now it's bad, actually? yes that makes sense
Definitely an Activision/Blizzard employee. Nobody else would miss the disingenuity of making such a statement about a free-to-play game.
comparing the entire landscape of gaming to a game is a very different thing to comparing it to a specific game
And my point is, taking into account the landscape, even in a macro level such as Activision's own behaviour with the series, including this very game, is relevant context worthy of being part of a review.
it would be like if somebody reviewed Baldur's Gate 3 by saying it was bad just because they liked the source powers from Divinity 2. as part of a review maybe it works, sure but as the bedrock and sole item of substance, it's useless.
Your analogy falls flat because Divinity and BG, though they share much of the same inspirations and development staff, are very different games. OW2 is basically OW1 with some minor tweaks and microtransactions.
The problem with OW2's mtx though is that the game makes it as hard as possible to ignore its microtransaction nature as possible, and they willingly hamper the user experience to do so.
Other than the MTX, OW2 is so similar to OW1, that without it, these reviews would be saying that they're essentially the same game. So what they're saying now, that it's OW1 enshittified, is valid.
your entire argument so far has been "I preferred the previous game therefore OW2 deserves to be the worst reviewed game on steam".
If that's what you took away from my comments, then I'm afraid you cannot read. That, or you're unable to discern from different users. All I've said was that people calling OW2 basically enshittified OW1 is not review bombing, because it's a valid review.
even ignoring the fact that you've failed to articulate any differences past a vague notion of not liking that it's free-to-play
Because there are very few differences and none of them are improvements. Like the shrinking of team sizes and available modes.
Also, F2P can be predatory as fuck, and Activision/Blizzard have most certainly been so here. they've even broken sales laws in countries like Australia.