Metacritic - Hurting Your Decision On Buying Games?

I can remember back in the days when you would rush to your latest supermarket to pick up a copy of your favorite game magazine (I use to buy GamePro every month) to read up on the latest games. I would always skip to the reviews first to see what games deserved my money and which ones were better off at the bargain bin or rental. Back then, people had trust in the reviewers working for game magazines such as GamePro and EGM. Not sure what made people stop trusting reviewers but now there is one almighty source for you to see if the latest game is worth your time....Metacritic.

Ever since Metacritic appeared in 1999, they have been building up a mecca of which all game reviews gathered from the top game journalists to a small indie review site and are put into a unknown mathematical formula to come up with a score from 0 to 100. Now you might say that this is perfect. No more buying magazines or visiting your favorite site to see what they have to say about a game. You can just head on over to Metacritic and in seconds you have your answer if the game is worth your money.

I, for one, still consider reviews, previews, etc as personal opinions of the author who wrote it and nothing more. Just cause he or she hated or liked a game, doesn't mean I will too. I tend to not care if they hate it or not but I look for the reason why they did and if it will affect my fun in playing that game. Having a quick place to look to see how the gaming journalists at large are liking or disliking a game is great. I will still go to the sites that I tend to trust for a deeper look at the game in question.

So I have to ask the inevitable question....does Metacritic influence your decision making in buying games? Or do you still rely on your favorite site/author to tell you like it is?