Now that I've put some time into BG3 post release, I am coming to the conclusion that it will be a historically important game, much like its predecessor. For the record, I did NOT think this as recently as six months ago.
With that being said, I think GOTY awards are silly. Why should we care what an assortment of "industry insiders" think about games? This is mostly just industry wankery, and I ignore this crap for pretty much the same reason that I ignore the oscars. The only opinion that matters is the opinions of the people PLAYING the game.
With regards to Starfield... Well, I'm pretty sure the poor user reviews on metacritic are due to a review bomb (and I *think* the rationale for that is people mad about microsoft refusing to release it on PS5). So it is not a reliable source for the game quality itself.
I am not yet playing Starfield, but based on my extremely high opinion of BG3 I doubt that it will be as good, because it is very rare for games to be this good. However, I will play it, and I expect that I will find it enjoyable. I have friends playing Starfield right now who are claiming to be having a blast.
I doubt BG3 will reach anywhere near the significance that BG2 has. At best it will be remembered for the porn. Otherwise it will imo fare like DA:O. Not totally forgotten, but also not exactly remembered with people also more freely addressing the problems it has in retrispect than what is possible now.
