if your game isnt interesting within the free-refund time period on steam, expect bad reviews

simple as

The game very much looks like it is in the same boat Concord was in. It might be a perfectly cromulent game, but why should/would anyone play it over other established games exactly the same that have better character designs for the heroes? Because it's free? Becsuse you have a horse?

Sorry but this sounds kinda condescending to me. I know you're trying to make a point about expectations affecting people's judgement (which is obviously correct) but it really comes off as pretentious instead ; I hope this is not on purpose.

It feels like you're saying "I thought about the game and asked questions while everyone was just dismissive and didn't think, so it's their fault for not enjoying it" (I know this is not what you said, I'm exaggerating so you can maybe see how you come off)

Ironically, by saying people shouldn't be so dismissive, you are being quite dismissive of them. I think there are better ways to phrase what I believe to be your main argument (expectations affect experience), although I won't pretend I'm great at those things (I probably sound quite condescending here ; I promise I'm actually trying to help)

I know they're called "reviews" but they actually often wildly swing between actual, in-depth reviews and quick impressions. Blame Steam for having no interest in differentiating between the two, not users for using the feature as intended.

They could have a "Quick Impressions" section with no minimum character limit, and a "Reviews" section with a 500-word limit or more, and even have a separate score for each. Or any alternative solution that achieves the same result.

On average, the first hour of a video game is sub par.

If it's a golf game, you're doing all right then.

This seems to be a trend as if you only take into account reviews with 2+ hours of play time, Highguard’s opinions are “mixed” rather than “overwhelmingly negative”.

People who enjoy a game are more likely to have more playtime, therefore the higher the playtime in the 'window' of reviews that you look at, the more likely they are to skew high. This is exactly what you'd expect to see on any game, barring situations like the developers making changes that ruin a game that previously was good.

So after 2 hours of not having a good time, the game was deemed bad and negative reviews were written.

Two hours is the window for a refund, so I absolutely make a call within 2 hours. If a game - especially a new / expensive game - hasn't engaged me within that time, I refund it and move on. I don't have enough hours in the day to play games I don't enjoy hoping that they'll get good eventually. Why should anyone feel the need to do that, whether they're giving the game the benefit of the doubt or not? It's the MMO argument. "The game gets really good around the 100 hour mark!" I don't care. I'm not sticking around for it. There are plenty of other games to play that are fun within the first 2 hours. If a developer expects people to slog through an unenjoyable 2+ hours to get to "the good parts", they probably deserve the negative reviews.

"Without some benefit of the doubt, many good games would be dropped and deemed bad. Wanting to like a game is a really important factor."

That depends on what game and what crowd you are talking about. 4x/Grand Strategies/management crowds are much more patient; 70+ hrs/playthrough is common with a steep learning curve, and this is where a reputation for being complex overrides the need for intuitive tutorials, so people are much more forgiving.

Highguard is not one of those games; it was doomed to be Concord 2.0 at the beginning, but then again, I don't really understand those crowds either, since I hardly play PVP shooters.

Probably a result of living in a highly judgmental global society that would rather form an immediate opinion, even if it is objectively wrong, than spend the time to actually investigate what the facts about something are.

As an example, some people say that any person named in my comment should immediately be jailed. I feel this is a wrong opinion, because any person can be named in a conversation that they aren't party to. I could, for example, start talking about Mr. Rogers, and he is technically named in my comment. But some people say that the name just being in my comment is enough "evidence" to jail him forever. Rather than spending the time it would take to realize I was only saying "I liked Mr. Rogers' show on TV," they want an immediate resolution despite however wrong or inaccurate it would be.

Investigation and research matters, and we live in a global society that villifies this ideology in favor of forming immediate and often wrong opinions about things they spend almost no time actually investigating.

I mean, I remember a time where you were expected to not be able to win a game in a single sitting, and in fact, you might not get all the information about a game in the actual game. We had to read manuals for tutorials, maps, and story exposition. Try releasing a game nowadays that does that and you're going to get slapped with a 1/10 because people nowadays have less patience than a goldfish.

Personally, I primarily blame legacy news outlets and social media for this. But I digress.

Even after having gone through the tutorial, 2 hours is more than enough time to see the loop of Highguard several times and decide you don't like it. 2 hours is more than enough to count as "the old college try" for any game, as it should be a goal of the designers to make your game fun and interesting right away. If I'm waiting more than how long it would take me to watch a feature length movie before I start having fun, then they screwed up.

Reviews are the least important info. If you like the theme and screenshots/video looks nice enough to you, then download the demo and test it yourself. If it's good then it is good, if it isn't then no GOTY-awards would change that.

Most of the games have a demo version. You just need to look up in the right place.