Brob, I am too assed to critique and this is the bore. There's no point in making a dissertation on these games.
Looking at the critical reception and general consumer reception of games like Uncharted 2 and Bioshock Infinite; they are both overrated as fuck because people can seemingly only express themselves in extreme binaries. I assume that's what people mean when they talk about games being overrated? There is plenty of critique to be found on these games, but they barely blip with regards to the collective consensus of quality.
Bioshock is a bad game, period. Vapid goal-oriented corridor gameplay, terrible shooting, on rails structure. It is a moving picture strapped into first person mode with guns and magic power. It is lauded as one of the best games of this generation; it is dog shit. I haven't played Bioshock Infinite because of this reason.
GTAIV is a middling game. It has the occasional cool idea mixed in one-dimensional mission design, terrible mission variety, terrible mission mechanics (forcing you to replay an entire 40 minute mission from scratch if you die for instance, without one hint of a checkpoint), horrible robot controls in an action game that has below standard cover mechanics in a game that requires it. Awarded for its storytelling and take on American modern living while managing to express jack shit of originality or pertinence or even consistency within the framework of its own narrative as it jumps from hoop to hoop and goal to goal without an ounce of respect for the narrative term called "character development." Its popularity and reviews prove that games are propelled by hype more so than actual mechanical depth and tight gameplay.
Dark Souls is an above average game with awful controls, physics, the definition of jank. Mind numbly simple AI and combat mechanics, though it gives the player a ride with unique enemy formations and setups, which, are very easy once gotten past, the game reuses the same core enemies over and over, which makes the "challenge" repetitive and in many cases, boring. Archaic design that makes the game an exercise in trial and error that, once gotten past, is rarely challenging again as you wallow through its repetition. A semi-challenging game with bad design that is considered challenging by virtue of the fact that it's slightly harder than the competition, rather than giving the player an honest to goodness reason to change their strategy or approach. Dark Souls is "hard" in that you travel 5-10 minutes to retrieve your soul and that's about it. Compared to Ninja Gaiden 2, for instance, which forced me to constantly change strategies on the fly, or Dead Rising which forces management of resources, and I don't get the big deal. The fact it's been treated as a savior for gamers is the icing on the cake.
All overrated.
There. Are you happy?
