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MoH reviews a "black eye for EA management", cause share dip

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EA's share price fell by 6 per cent last night, apparently following the release of and critical reception to rebooted shooter Medal of Honour.
The game currently holds a 74 (PS3) and 76 (360) per cent review average on Metacritic - likely to be considered disappointing for a high-profile modern combat title intended to compete with Call of Duty.
Failing to achieve 85-90 per cent is "a black eye for EA management given the amount of focus and hype they have placed on the game," reasoned Cowen and Company analysts Doug Cruetz and Adam Noily, in a post-release assement titled "Early Medal of Honour reviews look decidedly Tier 2."
"We believe the mixed reviews could impact the title's legs as it will likely be competitively disadvantaged once Activision releases Call of Duty: Black Ops. We continue to believe MoH can achieve roughly 4MM units in first year worldwide sales but believe that the likelihood of upside to that figure is now significantly diminished."
Cowen felt EA's planned revenue recovery over the next year was endangered as a result of Medal of Honor's predicted performance, and rated the publisher's stock neutral.
In a statement to the LA Times, EA attempted to shrug off the lower-end reviews, drawing attention to a number of higher-scoring ones.
"Critics' scores are highly subjective," it said. "The game had the highest pre-orders in the 11-year history of the Medal of Honor franchise; this is an essentially big achievement considering Medal of Honor has been dormant for several years.
"This is the first year in rebooting the franchise. Medal of Honor is part of a larger EA strategy to take share in the shooter category. This is a marathon not a sprint -– today's Medal of Honor launch represents a step forward in that race."
Other analysts felt the share price drop might be due to artificial levels of inflation in the game's much-hyped run up to release.
Said Eric Handler of MKM Partners to The Wall Street Journal, "This is a high-profile game where EA owns the [intellectual property], which can result in above-average margins as no license fee or royalty has to be paid to another entity."
"As such, I think it's a situation where some of the air is being let out of the balloon following a nice run in the shares and high expectations."
Lazard's Colin Sebastian agreed, noting that EA's stock risen some 15 per cent over the last six weeks, but noted that the mid-level reviews were "certainly bugging people."
EA's initial share price drop of $1.05 had recovered by $0.09 at the time of writing.
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http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-10-13-tepid-medal-of-honor-reviews-cause-ea-share-dip

Well, Metascores can be hugely deceptive - for example when reviewers are overly fixated on what is perceived to be a too short SP campaign - but mid-70s ratings for a AAA-title?

That's a huge disappointment for EA, no matter your stance on Metacritic. The ratings do have an impact on the market, there's just no way around it.
 
when reviewers are overly fixated on what is perceived to be a too short SP
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A few games sometimes can feel too long but the majorty of the time far far too many games are way too short and should be called up on it. More people still play there consoles offline than online and the first thing a game shouls focus on unless your pure online is a decent sized and well thoughout single player.

MOH being average is no surprise, the franchise with the exception of Allied Assault is the poster child for being AVERAGE.
 
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm a very harsh critic of short SP campaigns - I'm of the opinion that if you don't do SP right, LEAVE IT OUT OF YOUR GAME.

Either do proper SP content, or don't do it at all.

What I do think though is that sometimes criticism in that regard gets blown out of proportion and distorts ratings somewhat.
 
Yeh theres no doubt, I mean I go on gamespot a lot to check on user reviews and you read the ones who give perfect 10's or low 1,2,3 or 4's...There reasons are fucking awful :rolleyes:

I've heard the sp is 5 hours long ? in MOH

Come on for £30-35 I expect more.
 
Just playing it now and to be honest.. i'm really underwhelmed. It's just a standard modern SF shooter.. that's it. For a game that's supposed to compete with Call of Duty that's not enough.. by far.

I get that they are going from a different mindset.. a bit more realism, down to earth mission design and all that but when everything is scripted and i veer off the script and can't get through a closed door which opens up a few moments later i kind of get annoyed.

There is nothing in the game i haven't seen in others.. spotting for air support, placing demo charges and just shooting the bad guys.

CoD just manages to take these familiar elements and turn them into adrenaline pumping action.. it's highly unrealistic but hugely enjoyable to race along and fight the bad guys.

MoH is the other way.. more realistic design but also a tad more boring.
 
I think if a single-player campaign feels perfunctory and truncated then a critic has every right to heavily ding the game for it. It's part of the game, it's not some optional feature that's being given too much weight. If you want a title that's focused exclusively on multiplayer, then make a game that's multiplayer-only. Then you can just toss out the critics who are upset that there was no SP mode.
 
Having an unsatisfying or too short Single Player campaign should be enough to drop a game down into the 60s (out of 100) as far as I'm concerned. Majority of gaming is still done "off-line".

Only sports games and party games come to mind as games where I would accept a mediocre single player experience.
 
With a bit of luck this might serve to stem the tide of endless drab FPS games that seem to have flooded the market of late...OK, maybe not, but one can only hope.

Nothing new of course, I remember back when Doom first came out there were millions of band-wagon knock-offs or "Doom clones" and before that, the original Super Mario Bros. spurred a whole slew of rubbish cartoony platformers with only a certain blue hedgehog showing any real innovation and serious competition. Then of course there were all the Street Fighter II copycats and on and on and on...these days everyone appears to want to make the next Modern Warefare. It'll pass soon enough.
I just want Valve to hurry up with the next HL already and show them all how it's supposed to be done. ;)
 
Personally, although I love Modern Warfare, I think I prefer this. I just thought the story telling was better. It was more realistic and even the com chatter sounded better. There were several places that had me on the edge of my seat and I found myself actually moved in a couple of places, like the end of the Belly of the Beast mission and the ending.

I just like the realism when other shooters are trying to outdo each other by going over the top with their storylines. Plus, while I like MW2, I hated how the story was sort of told over satellite images with some vague narration.

Yes, the story was fairly short, but I give the studio props for telling the story they wanted to tell and getting out without throwing in a bunch of filler missions to pad the length. All of the missions felt interconnected as well with some of the different characters actually meeting each other and working together. Some of the Call of Duty games have storylines that only seem vaguely connected.

Admittedly, I can't speak as to the quality of the multiplayer as I never play online. I prefer to have an actual story to that.

Plus, the PS3 version comes with an HD update of MOH: Frontline. All in all, I was very pleased and am looking forward to the next installment which is something I can't say about the past few MOH games.

I'm hoping that Black Ops will be good in November, but so far, something about the trailers just hasn't excited me like the previous Call of Duty games. Many liked Treyarch's World at War, but it frustrated me so much with the overuse of grenades that I couldn't even finish it.

As to the poster who stated that the MOH franchise was average, I'll just mention COD3. 'Nuff said.
 
Every review I've read says the same thing: it just doesn't do anything different from the other shooters on the market. I've also heard about graphical issues popping up, and a multiplayer that can't really compete with MW2 or Bad Company 2.
 
I thought it was a good game, but the SP is too short. It just ends. I dont like playing online all the time so I really look for a decent single player game. Unfortunately just as you are really getting into the story and the action it ends and that is it.
 
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