It didn't flop. It's an over exaggeration. But all the 10s you saw were from MS shills sites, most with Xbox in their name. MS refused to give review codes to certain sites so their reviews came after release. When the actual reviews released, the game went down to 83 on metacritic.Wait Starfield flopped? All the 9 and 10's reviews I saw said otherwise. (This is an honest question not a jab.)
It's not really a failure but it's far from what MS expected. It didn't move the needle.