The last paragraph is the useful one. I spent years thinking certain games were bad and they were fine games at the wrong table.
The variable is whether people want to talk. A group that treats the evening as a conversation with a game attached will bounce off anything requiring quiet optimisation, and will love the same designer's lighter title.
Ask what the evening is for before choosing what to bring. That question has improved my hit rate more than any amount of reading about the games themselves.