No, I don’t think it’s just AAA games that don’t deserve all the hype, I think indie games can be overrated too. To give an example of both categories:

For AAA, it has to be The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for me. And, I suppose, by extension Tears of the Kingdom. Good games, great characters and I really like the guardian enemy designs. Additionally, the game is a great showcase of what the hardware in the Nintendo Switch is capable of. The game is also highly rated on review sites and has received so many awards, wikipedia actually has to list them in a spreadsheet.

However, I genuinely think previous Zelda games are more fun. I think the vast, open world actually hurts the game, as it gradually becomes less about exploring and more about checking off tasks like finishing shrines and finding korok seeds. Previous Zelda games had smaller, more focused worlds and I think they were better for it. And even one would choose to ignore that, there’s the fact that weapons break every two seconds and you constantly have to replace them, which I feel most reviewers just glossed over. Combat is pretty frequent, after all, so it does get grating. In previous Zelda games you get the weapon and you keep it.

For indie, I have to point at Don’t Starve. And I want to focus on the original, not Don’t Starve Together, which has a slightly different approach. Very pretty, with great animations, involved game mechanics and great replayability. It is also well reviewed and was nominated for several awards (I think it only won one, but being nominated is impressive enough, I think).

I liked it well enough, but ultimately bounced off it. Reason being, I found the game kind of stingy with telling you how some of its mechanics work, so I played it with a wiki open in my browser. I also couldn’t bring myself to make additional playthroughs because of its glacial progression.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I hope this explains my position a little bit.

No clue what name rater in pokemon is, but you do have OpenCritic, MetaCritic and the various awards some games get. I don’t think liking a game and thinking it’s overrated are mutually exclusive.

According to this thread overrated means either “games I didn’t like” or “games that didn’t work for me”.

Marketing/occupations in advertising.

It feels like people admitting their mistakes is a rarity these days. Good on Gitlab!

I’d like to read it! Also, your friend doesn’t sound like a friend at all.