Say what you will about Metacritic but it usually captures the gist of a game’s media impact. It is rare that a game has extremely varied review scores, especially across the top 10 or so review companies. Maybe +/- 10, with an odd outlier.
So, Metacritic is giving Heroes of the Storm an 86. For comparison’s sake, LoL got a 78 and DOTA2 got a 90. Smite has an 83 and Infinite Crisis has a 66. Based on my extremely limited experience with the fold, that sort of lines up (LoL should be higher mind you, but still behind DOTA2).
IGN, the fine purveyor of fanboi tears, has opted to give HotS a 6.5. It is the lowest score by 15 points.
The review itself makes a few valid points. That the game is expensive and time consuming to play at an elite level is just trollbait mind you. The map balance and focus on secondary objectives over competitive play is a consistent comment. KTR put it well, it’s competitive PvE, which is certainly a different flavor of MOBA.
Still, it takes some pretty big kahunas to hand out a 6.5. Especially for a site that is so drastically liberal with it’s score (WoD got a 9). And you know, tied at the damn hip with it’s Hearthstone reporting.
So I think I’ll sit back and enjoy the flames. This should be fun.
Leo's Life 
After my initial impressions from the beta, I have since gone back with fresh eyes and I don’t hate the game. I think it’s a valid alternative to what is already out there. My big concern are some of its long-term problems considering the monetization and gold gain curve. Sadly, no matter what IGN or Metacritic score the game as, no scoring system can really capture issues like that.
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Agreed. I thought that portion would have changed a bit (monetization) as the game drew closer to “release” but it would seem that it actually got worse. Kind of makes you wonder what the release date means at all now that I think of it, other than no longer generating $50 to get into beta.
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