I think that without one or two big critically acclaimed tentpole titles, lots of people just don't think it is a good year.
I also think the people who think that probably play like 5-10 games a year max.
This year has a super deep bench, but few tentpoles, so you get people who don't have that core memory for this year with the 5 games they played, since one of them was not BG3, and you get the misconception, misinformation, and intentional obtuseness.
This year's library is a deep bench. It doesn't have that one banger yall need but for many of us, one huge critically acclaimed game(even BG3) does not make or break the year.
If we used your scale, we could have a super shit year with no games, then BG3 release right before awards and everybody talking about best year ever.
I was watching a youtuber give his thoughts and it struck me that even he had only played either like 1 or 0 titles in each category. So most of us are not playing the games and a deep bench doesn't matter if we are not playing the games. Only the tentpoles matter.