See the edit to my previous post
So to you, with your objective outlook on games, a Shmup with a meta of 88 is objectively a better game than an open world AAA game with a meta of 74, and everyone who prefers the open world game is doing so knowing the open world game is inferior to the Shmup, but they just prefer it
It's not that reviews are subjective, it's than the Shmup is just the better video game?
Not always, and I made this very clear.
I can see, in the vast, vast majority of 7/10 cases why the game got that score, for example. Even if I personally love the game and had a 9/10 experience with it, I can see why it got the score it did.
As I said, sometimes the game amounts to more than the sum of its parts, that doesn't make the score invalid.
The issue is with the undue focus put on arbitrary cut off points.
How is a 79 game that much worse than a 83 game? This is when we listen too much to the vocal minority gamers making a huge fuss saying 80+ is good and below is crap, etc...
Really, a 7/10 game isn't THAT far off an 8/10 game, or even a 9. The 7/10 might have wonderful minute to minute but bad menus, some pacing issues, sub-par visuals in places etc... but the experience overall might be even more enjoyable than the 9/10 to many.
That doesn't mean it deserves a 9/10, as when we review and rate things we do so based on all the parts adding up.
Personal experience doesn't follow that rule. For some the -20-30% docking of score won't even phase them because the issues that brought it down don't bother them personally, but they should be able to acknowledge they exist. Game design is technical, there are things that stand out as objective;y good and bad elements of design as much as there are subjective. You enjoying a laggy menu doesn't mean that laggy menu is a subjective thing, for example, it means your tolerance for it is higher, or that the rest of the game just charms you so much you can ignore it.
This is the problem people have, they put too much stock in one or the other.