Suggested before. My alternative: do away with the rating entirely and just have reviews.

Neutral = don't leave a review.

How do you neutrally recommend something?

It is a review with a recommendation. A recommendation is binary; a yes or no question. You either do or dont recommend it.

Not sure why this constantly comes up, like it is complicated somehow.

It's too wishy-washy.

If a user makes the effort to post a review, then surely they can decide if they would recommend the game.

(Anything not a YES is a NO)

“Here’s my review explaining why I don’t know if you should purchase this game or not?”

引用自 Cherrycat：

Neutral = don't leave a review.

^ this

Remember, you don't have to leave a review

Personally, i don't want to sift through hundreds of "maybe" or "maybe not" reviews, only to end where i started.

If you can't make your mind up, just don't leave a review or keep playing said game until you do.

Also it's not mandatory to leave a review, if you can't decide for either option, just skip it entirely.

引用自 AmsterdamHeavy：

It is a review with a recommendation. A recommendation is binary; a yes or no question. You either do or dont recommend it.

Yes, it is currently a review with a (binary) recommendation. But it doesn't need to be. Changing the current state of things is the point of the forum, after all.

引用自 VaLiuM：

Personally, i don't want to sift through hundreds of "maybe" or "maybe not" reviews, only to end where i started.

That's okay, nobody's asking you to. I mean, there are already options on the review list to decide what you want to look at.

引用自 Gus the Crocodile：

引用自 AmsterdamHeavy：

It is a review with a recommendation. A recommendation is binary; a yes or no question. You either do or dont recommend it.

Yes, it is currently a review with a (binary) recommendation. But it doesn't need to be. Changing the current state of things is the point of the forum, after all.

It works better as a binary. It encourages people to actually evaluate their experiences rather than just regurgitate them.

引用自 VaLiuM：

Personally, i don't want to sift through hundreds of "maybe" or "maybe not" reviews, only to end where i started.

That's okay, nobody's asking you to. I mean, there are already options on the review list to decide what you want to look at.

And why have an option that does nothing?
A negative/Not recommend does something unique.
A Positive/Recommend does something unique.
A neuitral review does nothing unique. It does nothing that isn't already done better by a positive or negative review.

Back to the OP. Thumbs up and thumbs down is as shallow or as nuanced as the person writing it. Just as a lazy sports caster will just make a report xTeam X won/lost the match, while a decent one will talk about all the twists turns and hail mary's that lead to that victory/loss in addition to telling that they /won/loss.

Neutral reviews seem to be the desire of people who are too lazy to actually write a proper nuanced review, or who are afraid of being 'wrong' after all if you never pick a side you can't always claim you were the winner and never worry about being the loser.

Just imagine the majority of reviews for a game is neutral, how could you give any recommendation then based on that? The whole system as it is wouldn't work anymore and there probably wouldn't be a solution to it, except for leaving neutral reviews out of the score completely. So, why having them then in the first place?

Im just gonna say this, yet again and i dont like to parrot myself over and over but:

if you cannot make up your mind, dont review the game

引用自 Foehammer：

There's so many situations this could be useful .

Mind listing those many situations? or will this be like every other suggestion that has no substance to it?

Thumbs a middle would be nice. Because let's be honest, if someone thumbs in a middle game, people only tend to look at the negative review, not the positive review. Would be nice, because then I could change my thumbs down to a thumbs in the middle, because I hate ending my negative review on "Get if it's on sale,"

How would a neutral review help me as a consumer?
You either recommend the game, or you don't.

引用自 UltimaCJ：

Thumbs a middle would be nice. Because let's be honest, if someone thumbs in a middle game, people only tend to look at the negative review, not the positive review. Would be nice, because then I could change my thumbs down to a thumbs in the middle, because I hate ending my negative review on "Get if it's on sale,"

If you recommend a game, you give it a thumbs up.

If you don't you give it a thumbs down.

A neutral review would be neither option and wouldn't help in the slightest, why even reviewing then? Once you made your mind up, you can forward to recommending or not.