While reviews for games are a bit of a controversial topic, user reviews for games are regarded to be more trustworthy. Though there can be issues with fans review-bombing a game unfairly, the "shovelware" that many publishers try to sell are often bought in droves, only to be criticized after discovering how bad the game is.

RELATED: Skyrim: 10 Ways The Game Can (& Should) Still Be Improved

Within just the past few years there have been a large number of games that have been met with criticism despite selling well. Breaking sales records within a week, only to be sold online a few days after is a cycle known all too well for those buying games at launch. There are a number of games that, despite all the bad reviews, still sold incredibly well.

10 No Man's Sky Turned Itself Around From An Awful Launch

No Mans Sky

The story of No Man's Sky is a rare one in the world of video games as not many games revitalize themselves after a terrible launch. The game had a lot of attention on it with promises of exploring unique planets and discovering the world. The game would eventually become one of the biggest underdog stories in gaming, but not before it made headlines with how awful of a game it was initially.

With countless bugs and gameplay that was repetitive and hollow, players would often find themselves in a loop of crashes, boredom, and frustration. Despite this, all the excitement from gamers before launch still had many consumers buy the game on day 1. With over a million copies sold and a 6/10 on most news sites, it has since come back from its launch with a new 9/10 across the board.

9 Homefront Sold Over 2 Million Copies With Middling Reviews

Homefront

Thought to be the next Call of Duty, Homefront came out to many people's disappointment. The game's campaign was the biggest cry of concern as it was only 5 hours long. While the online mode saw some play for a while, players quickly found themselves struggling to find lobbies after a few weeks.

The common consensus of players seems to be that there is a good game hidden underneath but was held back because of its short campaign and uninspired level design. At 2.6 million copies sold and a sequel released sometime after, the reviews didn't stop this game from standing out.

8 Kinect Adventures! Sold Over 20 Million Copies Despite The Kinect's Failure

Kinect Adventures!

The Xbox 360's Kinect was one the biggest flops for Microsoft and Xbox despite being so popular. A number of games were released for the hardware and most were met with middling to low reviews. A few stood out with Kinect Star Wars and Fable: The Journey, but most Kinect games struggled due to poor control and short gameplay.

RELATED: 10 Video Games That Are More Fun To Watch Than To Actually Play

Kinect Adventures! is one of the highest-selling Kinect games but it has some of the lowest scores of any other Kinect game. As a game with nothing to offer but mini-games for 1-2 players, reviewers were fair in their criticisms. After all this, however, the game still sold 24 million copies with 61% score on Metacritic.

7 Enter The Matrix Survived On The License Alone

Enter The Matrix

Movie licensed games often sell decently well while offering a poor performance for a quick cash grab. The movie-licensed games of the past during the SEGA vs. Nintendo days have long been over. Enter The Matrix is one such game that came out during a time when movie-licensed games were starting to decline. Other titles like The Simpsons: Hit And Run were doing well while other games like Over The Hedge were barebones games.

Selling over 2.5 million copies within the first 6 weeks of the game's release certainly helped its credibility but its finicky and buggy gameplay left much to be desired for players. The game would eventually sell over 5 million copies and still maintains a Metacritic score of 62%.

6 The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct Broke The Top 10 NPD's Sales In 2013

The Walking Dead Survival Instinct

One of the worst licensed games with a strong amount of hate from critics, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct still managed to sell decently well in its first week. The exact numbers were never released but it is between 100K-300K based on where it fell on the NPD's sales chart. The game was 3rd in the UK Sales Chart for a time as well but once players got word of the quality of the game, it spawned numerous reviews, videos, and price drops for the title.

RELATED: Final Fantasy: 5 Strongest (& 5 Weakest) Characters, Ranked

Metacritic's score for the game was 38% with a user score of 2.6/10, making it one of the biggest flops of 2013. It was described as boring with broken A.I., too few skins for the zombies, and a desperate cash grab using the franchise's name.

5 Resident Evil 6 Still Sold 10 Million Copies Despite Its Poor Reviews

Resident Evil 6

Resident Evil saw many changes between its games and was praised for its change in direction by some and criticized for it by others. When the game was set to be multiplayer in the 5th installment, many players responded with praise while others responded with disappointment that the series was straying further from its Survival Horror roots. In an attempt to remedy this, Resident Evil 6 suffered an identity crisis while trying to cater to both audiences.

Long-time fans of the series refuse to even acknowledge its existence but people still bought the game with the promise of a more horror-centric game. With 10 million copies sold, the game was a success but fans were still upset and plummeted the game's review score. It maintains a 60% score on Metacritic and remains the black sheep of the RE community.

4 Star Wars Battlefront 2's Controversy Didn't Stop The Game From Selling

Star Wars Battlefront II

EA's reluctance to remove the microtransactions from Star Wars Battlefront 2 had many gamers boycott not only the game but all other EA-published games. While the pushback eventually led to EA removing many of the expensive features of the game, it didn't stop the game from selling well even at launch. Spending $100 in order to play as their favorite Star Wars characters was just ignored and the game still has a decently sized player base.

RELATED: The Legend Of Zelda: 10 Times Link Had An Actual Personality

By December of 2017, the game sold over 9 million copies. During the game's free release on the Epic Store, it saw 19 million people claiming the game on top of this. The game had low scores to start with but as of now, after EA's change to the game's microtransactions, it still only stands at 65% on Metacritic and a 1.8/10 user score.

3  Anthem Didn't Pull Off The No Man's Sky Method But Still Made Over $100 Million

Anthem

When Anthem was released it had a lot of attention on it from trailers and early reviews as the game being shown off was far from what was eventually released. BioWare's "magic" didn't save them this time and it made the studio and many others begin to rethink how they develop a game. After a number of changes, some of which were only a few months before release, the people that worked on the game often had no idea what they were trying to accomplish.

The promise of the next Destiny-like game with a BioWare twist was promising and even upon completing the game, many players were hungry for more. After discovering that there wasn't much of a game behind the pretty visuals, word started spreading that Anthem was not what EA had promised their consumers. Still, the game saw over $100 million in revenue as of February 2019, with $3.5 million coming from in-game purchases alone. The game has a devastating 59% on Metacritic, with a user score of 4.0.

2 Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Has The Lowest Metacritic Score Of The Franchise

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War

For the main series Call of Duty game, Black Ops Cold War had a low score from critics. The repetitiveness of the series has been a popular subject amongst gaming journalists, but for reviewers, the main focus came from the quality of the game. Whether it was rushed out the door is unknown, but many fans of the series seem to think the game was rough around the edges.

This didn't hurt the series credibility, however, as it was the top-selling game of 2020. Just as well, it is the 20th best-selling video game in the US in lifetime dollar sales. It sits with a Metacritic score of 76% and a user score of 3.4/10.

1 Aliens: Colonial Marines Was One Of Sega's Best Selling Games For The Year

Aliens Colonial Marines

When looking up the most controversial or the worst received games of all time, Aliens: Colonial Marines is bound to pop up. The game was a complete disaster and caused bad relations between Gearbox and Sega for a time. With bad graphics, broken A.i., and game-breaking glitches, the game failed as soon as it hit store shelves. Several years after its release, the game was discovered to have a coding error that could fix the A.I. when corrected.

Despite this, the game suffered many other issues and didn't cause any sort of resurgence in popularity. At the end of Sega's financial year, the game was among its top sellers and sold over 1.31 million copies. The game has a 45% on Metacritic with a 3.5 user score.

NEXT: 10 SNES Era RPGs That Hold Up To This Day