Has video game reviewing become an impossible task?

With Fallout 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops III and Star Wars Battlefront drawing lukewarm reactions, what is the critic's role in the age of patches and updates?

Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wishes to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time."
E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel

This month we have managed to shock a few readers by giving four of the year's biggest releases - Fallout 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Star Wars: Battlefront and Rise of the Tomb Raider - three stars out of five. All are decent in a lot of ways, all have intriguing ideas and look beautiful - but each of them is lacking in fundamental areas, whether that's about original content, the depth of the mechanics, or basic functionality. Three stars, though, means they're fundamentally good games. Three stars does not mean we're haters.