I hear Bethesda buys reviews, so probably that.
Would explain why Fallout 4 gets so "OMG BEST GAEM EVUR" numbers from companies, but user score on Metacritic is in the red and there's tons and tons of negative steam reviews.
Buys reviews? That's new, the most heavy handed practice that I ever saw proven beyond doubt was publishers blacklisting reviewers who've scored them unfavourably and giving those who've scored favourably priority with hands-on material. And Bethesda is hardly exemplary, this practice or some form thereof is ubiquitious.
And lol Metacritic. Why this isn't yet renamed into review-bomb.com is beyond me. And tons of negative Steam reviews? Oh dear, never trust a statistic you didn't falsify yourself. Yeah, there are a couple thousand negative reviews ... and offset by more than tenthousand of positive reviews (last I checked, 78% of all reviews were positive).
There's plenty legitimite critique you can point at FO4 (such as my game being unplayable due to driver crashes every five minutes), but what you just brought up is about as solid as a handful of air.