However, in a lot cases, Metacritic’s tabulation of an individual score and the actual score implied by a critic are not always one-to-one. They are not as bad as, says, Rotten Tomatoes, who boil down a review score to “Fresh” or “Rotten,” but the system does have its flaws. For instance, sites that don’t use Metacritic’s 100-point scale will have their score changed in order to fit within that scale. So a game that receives a 3/5, for example, becomes a 60/100 on Metacritic’s scale.
The issue gets a little more hairy, though, when Metacritic tries to incorporate scores like letter grades, or ones that are not on a scale divisible by five, into the aggregate. Then Metacritic has to make some adjustments that might alter the actual quality implied by the score. And then when Metacritic creates its final average, that score might be swayed by those “altered” scores. All in all, there are people who swear by Metacritic and those who outright dismiss it.
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Source: Ars Technica
