Has anything with even a moderate amount of hype netted under an 8 score from any major reviewer lately? Nope.
that's because most reviews are paid for these days.
you guarantee a favorable review, and you get an advanced copy of the title plus a slice of the advertising. like when they feature your awesome review in their commercials.
people have even been fired for giving poor reviews of games when publishers had already paid the website or magazine for the right to advertise (see: Kane and Lynch vs. Gamespot). this does a huge disservice to the gaming industry, but it's not alone. the bottom line here is not to trust any critics, the reason can be applied to nearly every type; food critics, TV, film, books, etc.
everyone just wants to get paid.
the actual quality of the product is irrelevant.
you just need to make it sound good enough so that sales will cover the cost of production.
this is why I advocate the "try before buy" method of PC gaming.
and yes, that is to say that I pirate games, only buying them once I know I'll like them. well, I don't do this every time... but I do it.
this can be avoided when games offer legitimate demos that can be downloaded for free, but until the day we have a proper system of "renting" PC games, I remain a swashbuckler. I think this fair, and I justify it by always paying for the game when it's clear that I'll enjoy it. it helps too when I know someone who has the game I'm interested in, I can take it for a test drive that way.
I should also mention that if the game is already cheap, say 20 bucks or something or a 10 dollar Direct2Drive, I won't hesitate to pay for it if I think it's going to be good. like I just bought Torchlight without knowing hardly anything about it, being that it was so inexpensive.
