The new Nomura?

[Theodric]

As an aside, MMO's are a very different beast to single player games when it comes to reviews. Even if someone likes the base expansion, the subsequent patches could very well leave much to be desired. I've also noticed that there's usually a flood of 'best expansion ever' reviews right at launch and then very little after that period. That goes for both positive and negative reviews.

The other elephant in the room is that Square Enix actively bribe certain content creators (by their own admission) with free merchandise and invites to exclusive events which is rather blatantly a mutually beneficial arrangement between both parties to allow for financial gain. In other industries, such shady arrangements would be seen as inauthentic and very dubious.

[Amnmaat]

The premise of trying to use metacritic to assess MMO expansions is fundamentally flawed, no matter which side of the fence you're on. MMO's are by nature a live-service style game, and expansions have a 2+ year content lifecycle that make it incredibly difficult to really rate them until they've run their course.

Expansions in 14 are particularly difficult to assess rapidly because SE basically never rolls out the new endgame systems/features of the expansion until LONG after the launch. Reviewers never even have a chance to interact with the failed systems, cut content and general patch content issues that end up being at the core of many peoples criticisms about certain expansions.

Where Stormblood was an expansion redeemed by its patches, Endwalker was an expansion undermined by them.

You're partly correct, but not fully.

"A game producer is responsible for managing all aspects of a game's design, development, and release.1 Their responsibilities include working with creative and quality assurance teams, designing the story arc, public relations, meeting with financiers to get the project funded, working with marketers to advertise the video game, and working with a legal team to get the game licensed" source: https://www.ziprecruiter.com/career/Video-Game-Producer/What-Is-How-to-Become

Producers have as much, if not, more say than the director. When the director is creating a bad story, plots, and bad game design overall the producer can ovewrite him and present him with a better or completely different direction for the game narrative, story, and game design. FFXVI IS yoship's game. As ziprecruiter states, the game's story arc is his design.

As an aside, MMO's are a very different beast to single player games when it comes to reviews. Even if someone likes the base expansion, the subsequent patches could very well leave much to be desired. I've also noticed that there's usually a flood of 'best expansion ever' reviews right at launch and then very little after that period. That goes for both positive and negative reviews.

The other elephant in the room is that Square Enix actively bribe certain content creators (by their own admission) with free merchandise and invites to exclusive events which is rather blatantly a mutually beneficial arrangement between both parties to allow for financial gain. In other industries, such shady arrangements would be seen as inauthentic and very dubious.

This is true, every expansion release has been "the best expansion ever" sans endwalker. I still remember the incredible praise stormblood got, called better than heavensward, etc. Moreover, as you stated a lot of these game sites are mostly required to give high score to the bigger game makers now; unless the game is a buggy mess that can't be justified like cyberpunk's initial release. Same goes for these "influencers."

shadowbringer's initial release might've been great, but outside of 6.3 and bozja we got less dungeons, less hairstyles (chronically less, a trend that continues in endwalker), and the complete gutting of job classes and their mechanics. So yeah, as much as we want to kiss the toes of shadowbringers, it was average at best, when we go down the list past the msq and past asmongold's drooling/wow's refugee crisis.