I made a sequel to a game, and it got 9.75, Then, i created a non-sequel game, which was better in every way, and it got a 6.25.
Thats the Game Dev Tycoon. Its sometimes weird.
It just looks like your game wasnt better… thats all what I can say.
In real life, new IP’s got it hard to assert onself on the market against established IP’s. (Homefront vs. Call Of Duty & Battlefield for example)
IMHO I think, that reviewers ingame reflect this by vote new IP’s down.
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As far as I understand the review system, it works by comparing the stats of your current game to your last 9+ game. So that means when you got the 9.75 score, it set a new base line for what’s expected of your company. So now if you release a game with the same score and bonuses as the 9.75 game, it’d only get like a 7. I haven’t looked into the code, just read others post about what they figured out from playing the game, so this could be completely wrong.
To put it in perspective, think of Gearbox. For ages they were mostly involved in making ports and small tie-in games. When they started in making their own franchises, they made Borderlands, which critics quite liked. Then they made Aliens: Colonial Marines, and were heavily criticised for it. Do you think critics would have cared as much if Gearbox was still “that port company” and hadn’t proved they’re capable of better?
Yeah, but the non-sequel had better stats…
What do you mean it was better in every way?
Did it have more features? Was it AAA? Was the console differnet? The genre? Topic? Please can you specify the game, if not, create a picture of the game in the Game History tab (you can do this by using the snipping tool in accessories)
Better design, technology, features, better audience & genre & topic & platform matches.
Alright.
There is one thing you should know.
The Game Score and eventually the review is also based on Game Quality.
Game Quality can get penalized if for example the T/D ratio is way off, but in case of sequels you get a small bonus.
Thus increasing you’re Game Score by quite a bit. ( following a trend also provides a bonus )
Making a non sequel next, causes a bit of a problem since you will need to beat a much higher Game Score then you might have anticipated.
There are a few tricks to “beat” the Game Score when it comes to making sequels.
Often people will try not to implent new features or hold off on training staff before they make that sequel.
After the sequel, train staff and add some features to your non sequel.
I hope this make some sence 
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When i made Slender for pc on game dev tycoon it got like a 9 out of 10 when i did slender the arrival aka the sequel of slender, it got like a 4. Game dev tycoon is weird because some ratings can go very low. 
It can depend on the time in between making the First game and the Sequel Game. If in that time you have made a massive amount of research and therefore a whole new engine, as well as having trained your team members a lot more and therefore the design and technology is a lot more, Then you are going to get alot of extra points because of the massive leap you have made from one generation to the next.
If this was right after you made the sequel or even with a game in between, but within 40 weeks its understandable you got this low review.
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Will Wright once said, “A simulation is a set of assumptions.” Those assumptions could point to one thing or another, but the game is just assumptions.