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OpenCritic VS Metacritic

Compare OpenCritic VS Metacritic and see what are their differences

OpenCritic logo OpenCritic

OpenCritic is basically a community-based website that aggregates the news, reviews and views on a game on a single platform.

Metacritic logo Metacritic

Metacritic aggregates music, game, tv, and movie reviews from the leading critics. Only Metacritic.com uses METASCORES, which let you know at a glance how each item was reviewed.
  • OpenCritic Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-08
  • Metacritic Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-23

OpenCritic features and specs

  • Aggregate Scores
    OpenCritic provides an aggregate score for games, which helps users quickly gauge overall critical reception.
  • Transparency
    The platform is known for its transparent review process, showing scores from multiple critics and outlets to provide a range of opinions.
  • Critic Diversity
    OpenCritic includes reviews from a variety of critics and publications, ensuring a diverse array of viewpoints and reducing bias.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    The website is designed to be user-friendly, offering easy navigation and clear presentation of information.
  • Release Calendar
    A release calendar feature helps users keep track of upcoming game releases with corresponding review scores.

Possible disadvantages of OpenCritic

  • Limited User Reviews
    Unlike some competitors, OpenCritic focuses more on critic reviews and may not offer as many user-generated reviews.
  • Critic Overrepresentation
    Heavy reliance on professional reviews might downplay the significance of indie games or niche titles that don't receive widespread coverage.
  • Potential Delays in Score Updates
    There can be delays in updating scores as reviews come in, which might affect the immediate representation of a game's quality upon release.
  • Smaller Database
    OpenCritic might have a smaller database of reviews compared to other platforms, potentially missing some lesser-known games.

Metacritic features and specs

  • Aggregated Scores
    Metacritic aggregates scores from multiple critics and users, providing an overall perspective on the quality of a game, movie, or album.
  • Critic Reviews
    It offers a consolidated view of professional critic reviews, making it easy to see the general sentiment among industry experts.
  • User Reviews
    Users can leave their own reviews and scores, adding a diverse range of opinions to the aggregated score.
  • Easy Comparison
    The website allows for direct comparison between critic scores and user scores, providing a well-rounded view of the received media.
  • Comprehensive Database
    Metacritic maintains a large database that includes movies, games, TV shows, and music albums, making it a versatile tool for consumers.

Possible disadvantages of Metacritic

  • Review Bombing
    User scores can be manipulated through coordinated mass reviews, commonly known as 'review bombing,' which can skew the overall score.
  • Not Always Representative
    The aggregated score might not reflect nuanced opinions and could oversimplify the critical reception.
  • Limited Context
    Metacritic scores sometimes lack context or detailed reasons behind the ratings, leading to possible misinterpretation.
  • Bias Towards Popular Media
    More popular games, movies, and albums are likely to get a larger number of reviews, potentially overshadowing niche or indie titles.
  • Critic Selection
    The choice of critics included in the aggregation can sometimes be controversial, as it might not represent a completely balanced view.

Analysis of Metacritic

Overall verdict

  • Metacritic is generally considered a valuable resource for those seeking aggregated reviews, as it offers a concise overview of critical reception. The site's scoring system can simplify the decision-making process for users. However, some critics believe that Metacritic's weighted average and lack of transparency in the scoring system might not always accurately reflect the diverse opinions out there.

Why this product is good

  • Metacritic is a review aggregation website that compiles reviews for video games, movies, music, and TV shows from critics and users. It provides an overall score or 'Metascore' to give a general idea of how a particular piece of media is perceived by critics. This can be useful for getting a quick sense of critical consensus and discovering whether something might be worth your time.

Recommended for

    Metacritic is recommended for individuals who want a quick, consolidated view of critical opinions on new video games, movies, music albums, and TV shows. It's especially useful for those who enjoy exploring a variety of critic perspectives before making decisions on what media to engage with.

OpenCritic videos

Video Game Review Site OpenCritic Takes Loot Boxes to Task

Metacritic videos

Metacritic Reviews - Celeste

More videos:

  • Review - Metacritic Reviews - Hollow Knight
  • Review - I HATE METACRITIC

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to OpenCritic and Metacritic)
Games
100 100%
0% 0
Movie Reviews
15 15%
85% 85
Game Reviews
41 41%
59% 59
Movies
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare OpenCritic and Metacritic

OpenCritic Reviews

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Metacritic Reviews

Best Sites For Rating Movies: 6 Top Movie Review Websites
Metacritic is distinguished by its methodology of aggregating reviews. Unlike other sites that simply calculate an average, Metacritic assigns a weight to each critic’s review based on their prominence and track record, offering a more nuanced overall score.
IMDb Alternatives
Metacritic is a website which can be used for reviewing a movie, TV show, or video game. The reviews are based on a Metacritic scorecard in which the range of scores lies between 1 and 100. You can find movies from different streaming web suites No film files are available on this platform. No apps and pop−ups can be seen while streaming a movie.

Social recommendations and mentions

Metacritic might be a bit more popular than OpenCritic. We know about 18 links to it since March 2021 and only 18 links to OpenCritic. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

OpenCritic mentions (18)

  • Ex-Kotaku staff go independent and launch Aftermath
    I don't think that is very accurate, in my experience the most popular reviews are Personality Driven and it is largely done in the youtube space, the next most popular writen sites are also more neutral when it comes to their reviews (Gamespot, IGN, Gameinformer, Eurogamer). Honestly people just want two things, to hear their favorite content creator talk about the game or have someone say how great it is. But in... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • ‘Metroid Prime Remastered’ Is a Proud Celebration of Letting Older Games Stay Feeling Old
    Check out the hall of fame at https://opencritic.com/ instead - no remakes/remasters/ports allowed, so it's all new games (ignoring Trails to Azure, though it's being released worldwide for the first time). Source: about 2 years ago
  • What's up with the user score?
    Am I the only one that finds Opencritic to be much better at visualizing the reviews? Source: about 2 years ago
  • What Python library is the best to scrap from OpenCritic?
    Import requests Import urllib.parse Games = ['onion asault','Untitled Goose Game','COD'] #need these headers else they know you are scraping and tell you to go get a api key lol Headers = { 'accept':'application/json, text/plain, */*', 'origin':'https://opencritic.com', 'referer':'https://opencritic.com/', 'user-agent':'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36... Source: over 2 years ago
  • Fandom Buys TV Guide, Metacritic, GameSpot and Other Brands for About $50 Million in Cash
    Metacritic blows. Rotten tomatoes isn't the best but it's much better than Metacritic for TV and movies and Opencritic is a million times better for video games. Source: over 2 years ago
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Metacritic mentions (18)

  • What Happened to this Once Great Site?
    It's Thursday night. I'm considering going to see 'Five Nights at Freddies' but not if it has bad reviews. I go to metacritic.com and it's not in the first row. Not in any of the rows on this horrendous website design. What the actual fuck? Source: over 1 year ago
  • Any games out there
    Go to metacritic.com and search for highest rated for your platform. With a request that broad that's your best option. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • What console should I get?
    Go to metacritic.com look at the PS5 and Xbox lists of "best games" do a count of the top 20 for each system and see what system has more games you want to play. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Is there a place that tracks/reports on all new MP game releases?
    Metacritic may be what you're looking for. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Reviews are currently plummeting.
    I think we should always question corporations and whether something is a fluff piece, but I find metacritic.com's critical review scores to be extremely realistic and helpful. Source: over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing OpenCritic and Metacritic, you can also consider the following products

IGDB - An open video game database

IMDb - Internet Movie Database

whatoplay - Game discovery made easier.

Simkl - Simkl is a TV, anime, and movie tracker that keeps a history of all the shows and movies you watch in one, central location. It’s a mobile app, a website, Google Chrome extension to keep track of everything you watch and integrates with many TV apps

MobyGames - MobyGames is the oldest, largest and most accurate video game database for games of every platform spanning 1979-2018.

Letterboxd - Letterboxd is a social site for sharing your taste in film, now in public beta.