I'm definitely not saying that they should buy every game. That would be ridiculous. I just think that having a monetary investment in anything invokes a different mindset on how you perceive the product, and is another reason why reviews can be skewed in either direction.

I also tend to be harsher on games that I buy Day 1 because I've just spent $60 on it and I want it to be everything that I had dreamed of while seeing the previews/trailers/hype machine that came before it. My go-to example of this was Uncharted 3. The vast majority of reviews out there rated it extremely well -- according to Metacritic, 24 different sites gave it a 10/10 (or whatever their equivalent was) -- and countless others gave it extremely high scores (9/10 or higher). Yet when I played it, all I noticed was all of the lackluster set-piece designs, my allies constantly getting in my way, and what I will generally refer to as "bullshit enemy AI" where moving between certain sections of the game was more about combating luck or memorizing enemy patterns, and less about "stealth and cover tactics."

Everyone is different. Some people will use their investment as a justification for glossing over flaws, and some people don't. I can't say I'm perfect in that regard -- I did pay full price for Lollipop Chainsaw and like to tell myself it was a great game when it really probably wasn't -- but it's one of the problems that surfaces when reading someone else's account of a game. In regards to Uncharted 3, I think it also might explain why (again, according to Metacritic), it received an aggregated 92/100 from reviewers and only an 83/100 from users. There has to be an explanation for that, whether it's "reviewers getting paid" or "hidden biases going into the game." I personally think monetary investment is a hidden bias that skews scores or impressions of a game, and how it is interpreted is up to the individual.