A game can be either great or awful, with no more room for meh games.

I think it's more just that expectations are much higher for a AAA studio like Bethesda. They built so much hype and asked for nearly $100 at launch for a game that didn't live up. There's plenty of meh games out there, they're just priced accordingly. There's also a ton of really great games out there priced way lower than what AAA studios are asking. I think it's very fair to hold those studios to a standard that reflects the prices they're charging.