When I hear about a new game, I usually read the first sentence or two on Wikipedia. I rule out games described as certain genres or types, like soulslike or online-only multiplayer games. Then, I check reviews on a site like Metacritic. If the critic or user reviews (doesn’t need to be both) are good enough, I add it to a list to play.
I also do this with movies and tv. Obviously, with sequels/series I know a little bit more about the games/movies/shows but I still go in as blind as possible.
I used to get some very good games out of discount bins and off the bulk used shelves. Lots of games that didn’t get the a-list treatment in advertising or were from smaller studios. You could pick up 5-6 games for $30 so it was worth the risk of buying them based solely on the cover.
Sometimes games are so bad that they’re so good. It’s hard to explain… but sometimes it’s true lol
When GameStop purged their 360 and PS3 titles I drove around to so many stores lol. Got so many awesome games at $1-5ish