Starfield's 100+ planet scope was a technical achievement that received critical recognition it did not fully earn as a player experience. Procedurally generated planet surfaces that repeat the same assets across thousands of locations, loading screens fragmenting a world that needed to feel continuous, and RPG systems that lacked the depth of comparable titles — these were real problems that critical scores did not fully reflect. It is a good game in specific modes; it is not the Bethesda masterpiece implied by its initial reception.

Death Stranding is not overrated in the traditional sense — its divisiveness is genuine and its defenders and detractors are both responding honestly to real qualities. What it is is poorly described by its marketing and initial coverage, which set up expectations of a conventional action game that the actual experience deliberately refuses. The 'overrated' response from players came from mismatched expectations, not the game itself.

GTA IV received near-perfect scores in 2008 for being a serious, cinematic, thematically adult game — which it is. What the scores did not fully account for is that the game is significantly less fun than its predecessors on most conventional metrics: the shooting is worse, the driving is heavier, the mission structure is more rigid. It was rightly praised as an artistic achievement and slightly overscored as a game to play.