If you grew up in the '80s or '90s and were not rich, you probably put a lot of time into many poorly reviewed games, because god damn it that's all you had. And because those games were impossible for children. And some adults.
But by the time I was a pre-teen and a little more discerning, I still put plenty of time into Hybrid Heaven, Body Harvest and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon on N64, any Armored Core game on PS1, King's Field on PS2, and the Lost Kingdom games on GameCube. Oh, and Custom Robo and Odama. I also felt like Contact and Electroplankton were scored fairly low by a lot of critics, but they were two of my favorite games on the DS.
Last generation, Devil's Third and Star Fox Zero both had secretly great multiplayer (and their regular campaigns weren't near as bad as most critics said -- both worth a play through). This generation, the Switch eShop's deluge of titles has led me to Earth Wars (a Vanillaware-like 2D loot scroller with a wealth of content for $5) and Yodanji (a super playable, super old-school Rogue-like for coffee breaks, which I copped for $2.99).
Long story short, reviews can be really helpful; it's always smart to do your research if you're not absolutely certain on a game. But after a while, you come to know your tastes and know when you'll be into something that maybe most critics aren't. Hasn't worked for me every time, but it works for me about 95% of the time or more.
