If the ratings are well written and explained then I'm very much willing to give them far more credence. However if a game peeks my curiosity and the tags are decent I'll give the game a chance (just one) despite the apparent negative reviews I see.
If the reviews are numerous and all bad I usually pass. Good games may have bad reviews and just because some players didn't like a game I might still love it.
It does affect it for me. I don't need a game to be perfected rated with 100 essays explaining why it is a 5 star, but I don't think I ever enjoyed a game with a rating below 3.
Yes and no. When the rating is 2 or less, I will usually not look closely at a game. If it is 4 or more, I will strongly consider it even if it doesn't immediately appeal to me. But apart from that, I base my decisions on the example images, plot description, game engine, and review texts. Also tags to some extent.
Partially, yes they do. If it's lower than 3 stars and there are several reviews I might take a peek, but it puts it on the back burner where it may be forgotten.
It depends, if it's rpgm and got less than 3 stars it's almost garanteed to be trash. If it's renpy, a vn and the renders look nice or it serves a rare niche I might still try it even when it got a low rating.
If the game has 1/5 or bellow I pass. I have found interesting games with a score bellow 2. But if the game is 1 or bellow, normally I find those games very difficult to play.
More like detailed reviews rather than ratings. Unfortunately, longreads are not very popular nowadays, but you can find them somewhere. Reviews consisting of two or three phrases are obviously of no interest.
I don't rely on them too much, I think only a very small proportion of those playing the game even bother to come back and rate it.
I do however read the last few pages of comments, just in case there a consensus that it's trash or has unavoidable paths of nonsense that wasn't clear in OP/tags (like NTR).
Depends on the quality of the ratings like how eloquent the reviewers are if they are well stated and clear on why they think it sucks yes but if it is cave man reasoning no.
I check the number of reviews the game has. If then are too few I wait for more to see if the score goes up or down more. The more reviews the better chance the game could be either good or bad.
If the previews are good I'm willing to check out the game even with bad ratings if it's only like 2-3 reviews, but if it's more than that I guess something is wrong with the game so I usually skip it unless the premise seems really interesting. In such cases, I read through comments and make a decision