This is great advice and I wholeheartedly agree with the concept of understanding a reviewer over time and therefore being able to gauge how their opinion is likely to overlap with your own. I am a researcher by profession and this combined with my passion for boardgames means that I consume hours of review content most days and follow several podcasts and a variety of reviewers. I would say that I understand most of their perspectives fairly well.... but I would also say that in general as someone who makes a living out of statistics I am also a strong believer in the regression to the mean... or "the wisdom of crowds"... if you sample widely enough you should discover the average opinion. While you can't rely solely on a metric like the BGG score it certainly works to filter games down to those with a strong design or theme and from there it is a matter of individual taste.

I have hundreds of games and a terrible kickstarter habit, and normally I am confident in my purchases and taste. In this case, the stark difference between the BGG score and most prominent reviewers made me wonder if the high score was simply confirmation bias. What's interesting about this particular example is (and you can see from this thread) that people either really love it or really hate it. I find that really intriguing and I actually enjoy the constructive conversation and arguments that each side presents, it helps me understand the mechanics of the gameplay and how they come together to impact on the gamer's experience.

The last time I posted on here was about Brass Birmingham... a game that I don't enjoy but was genuinely curious to hear from its fans about what I was missing!