Something I picked up after a few years of window shopping for games is how to find games that I will enjoy 100% of the time and not regret the purchase. It’s a simple trick. Here it is:

READ THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS ONLY!!

Positive reviews are pointless. Either the reviewer is wanking onto the keyboard or they are frothing at their mouth trying to find a single good thing to say that isn’t “herp derp 11/10 best gaem evar!!1″. You already know you are interested in the game if you bothered checking it out. Positive reviews will only cloud your judgement on a purchase and you may regret it. 

Examples: I regretted buying Dragon Age: Origins, The Witcher 3, GTA 5, and Overwatch. Why? Because I believed the hype. I thought these games might be every bit as awesome as people said they were, but I ended up hating all of them. Other games that were ruined for me were Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel and Spec Ops: The Line, due to being unplayable on my hardware; something I would have known about if I had read the negative reviews before purchase.

However, negative reviews humble your mind to a purchase you sets your expectations to a realistic standard. You don’t get disappointed, you get more or less what you imagined you would. Negative reviews will often describe the problems in a game and let you decide if they are deal breakers or if you can live with it. Unlike positive reviews you get a lot less wanking onto the keyboard and a lot less hive mentality to push a sale.

This as led to about 95% satisfaction with my purchases. A significant improvement from the rough 45% of just trying to play what everyone tells me to.