Being on a Dream Theater forum, the results may be a bit biased. Try to think about the quality of both albums as far as production and overall song writing. I feel both bands Metallica and Dream Theater hit a home run on both of their latest efforts.
My friend came over the other night to jam for a while. Afterwards, we always crank up the stereo in a loud manner and have what we call Metal Wars.
This time it was d/t vs hardwired. We had both album covers facing each other up on a stand and we would take turns playing a song off of each. My friend is a huge Metallica fan and I'm a huge DT fan. We felt these two albums are very appropriate to compete in metal wars.
We tried to give each album a fair shake. After about two hours of listening back and forth, each album has it's strong points. We both agreed the production and sound on d/t is better. You can crank the stereo way louder without the speakers distorting.
Hardwired probably wins as far as a organic metal album, as the vocals are not overly processed.
So we both would try to "bring it" with each song. The final battle was between Spit Out The Bone and Pale Blue Dot. I never thought I would hear this, but my friend said PBD gave Spit out The Bone a serious run for the money. Over all, we both agreed that both albums are almost a tie. My friend acknowledged that d/t has a better sound.