How much time must I waste on a game before I can rate?

[thesecret1]

If the game fails to hook you in the frst hour or two, it's bad. It is the game's job to hook you, not your to suffer through shit to get to the "good parts". With books, this is a clearly estabilished phenomenon – it's why they often contain an action-packed "prologue" whose only purpose is to show "it's gonna be great guise, I promise" before the first chapter brings a slow introduction to the world. If a game comes front-loaded with boring shit and people rate it as such, the dev has only himself to blame.

Not really, some gameplay mechanics take a while to develop.

A good game is fun from the very start. It doesn't need to have fully developed mechanics, but it needs to not be boring, however it may choose to achieve this.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Less than two hours, which also happens to be the grace period for when you can still refund a game on steam.