Gamers and video game critics have had a love/hate relationship for many years. What one critic can perceive as a worthwhile and exciting video game that everyone should play, another can deem it worthless and not deserving of your time because, at the end of the day, video games in their truest form are subjective after all. What works for some, won't work for others but alas, this is still one of the biggest on-going controversies in the games industry. There are, undoubtedly, many changes that need to happen in regards to the review system of video games which prompted Metacritic to review their system to prevent review bombing after The Last of Us Part 2 got dunked on even before it released. So, what are the most divisive video games between critics and gamers of all time?

TheToyZone, an online team of professional reviewers who are obsessed about toys, decided to do the dirty work for us and jump headfirst into Metacritic to find out exactly what video game titles that critics and gamers most disagree on and also, which platforms and franchises have the most divisive games. Up first is the 20 video games that critics and gamers lock heads on the most and the number one in line is Electronic Arts' FIFA 20. The 27th installment in the FIFA series came out on average at a user score of 11/100, a full 68 points fewer than the critics' score which came in at 79/100. The huge difference in score is staggering between gamers and critics here and the game even got its very own Twitter hashtag due to the disappointing Career Mode implemented within FIFA 20.

As you can see from the image above, all of the top 20 most divisive games were enjoyed more by critics than users with a gap falling no less than 46 between games and most above 50. In TheToyZone's article on this, they have stated that "perhaps it’s easier to fall in love with a game when you’re caught up in the hype of a big release. On the other hand, when a user doesn’t like a game they’ve shelled out money for, that bitter taste can be overwhelming.".

Flipping the coin, TheToyZone then looked at what video games gamers enjoyed more than critics. Left Alive, a primarily stealth-based third-person shooter with survival game elements by Square Enix, came out on top with a user rating of 83.0 compared to a critic score of 37.0 which is a pretty big split in a difference of 46. The lowest on the chart is Devil’s Third by Valhalla Game Studios and published by Nintendo for the Wii U and then PC. As you can see from the chart, the difference in the gap is much smaller between gamers and critics but users seemed to enjoy it much more as it sits at 67.0 compared to the critics' score of 43.0.

Next, we move onto what consoles provide the most diverse games. It seems as though when talking about the PlayStation 4, FIFA 20 has raised its head again in this category with user scores coming in at 11 and critics coming in with a whopping score of 79. FIFA 19 also divides critics and players with a difference of 64, critics giving it 83 and gamers laying low on a score of 19. Moving across to the PlayStation 3 we see Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 taking the prime spot with a division of 55 points and Call of Duty: Ghosts running in second place at a gap of 44 points. Check out more images below to see how the PlayStation 2, PlayStation, PlayStation Vita, and the PSP did in this category.

For fans of Nintendo Switch, you may be surprised (or not) to hear that Pokemon Sword and Shield Dual Edition was the most controversial. The game received an 80 score from critics but just 34 from users which provides another huge space between players and reviewers. Shin Megami TenseiDevil Survivor 2 published and developed by Atlus dominates the most divisive titles on the 3DS with Call of Duty: Ghosts coming in at 69 to critics and 35 for players on the most controversial Wii U games. Sliding onto Xbox One, yet another sports game sees itself at the top of the list with NBA 2K20 stretching the gap to almost full capacity at 67 points between player scores and critic scores with Mortal Kombat 11 providing the lowest gap at 54.

Regarding the Xbox, the list isn't as divisive here thankfully with both critics and players bridging that gap more. Talking about Forza Motorsport here we see reviewers seemingly enjoying it more at a score of 92 while players can’t fault the gameplay but find the overall presentation a little soulless as they hold it in place at 76. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic almost see reviewers and players come to shaking hands with only a division of 3 points between the scores.

Moving onto PC, Company of Heroes 2 shows the most profound divide on the platform. TheToyZone article points out that PC Gamer called it “the USSR of real-time strategy games: huge, powerful and just a little bit broken” whilst also stating that a Metacritic user cried out that it was an “insult the memory of those who died fighting the fascism.”

For anyone who has had the pleasure of owning a Dreamcast will know of the many great games that came onto the much-beloved system that hit the western shores in 1999. There's probably much to say that for this part of the research, critics and players actually came much closer together for many of the titles. SoulCalibur sitting pretty at the top of the list with 98 vs. 85 to players and Sonic Adventure 2 third on the list with a close score of 89 vs. 84. TheToyZone article continues to say that "Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is the most contentious game. Sure, SoulCalibur has a bigger rating discrepancy, but both critics and users thought it was great. On the other hand, critics gave Nemesis 79, suggesting they were slightly let-down after the PlayStation version. But Dreamcast gamers, who may not have experienced Capcom‘s original, gave this “must-own game for the Dreamcast” a zombie-whopping 91."

To find out what is the most divisive games of all time are, check out the boatload of images in the gallery above. It's fair to say that FIFA 20 is certainly top of the charts but are you surprised to see where GTA, Final Fantasy, and Civilization fall? To deliver these scores, TheToyZone started by collecting review data for over 24,000 video games from Metacritic. They then dropped the games with less than 200 user ratings and calculated the difference between players’ score and critics score for the remaining titles. The site then multiplied players’ scores by ten because while the Metacritic score range is 0-100, users’ score range is 0-10 and then continued to sort the data into platforms and game franchises. Make sure to check them out right here.