Seriously, check this article about Brink
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/05/why-were-not-review-brink-and-why-you-shouldnt-buy-it-yet.ars
Can you tell me on what did other reviewers (read: all) base their verdict on, if this was the review version of the game?

also, Ars is really keeping their journalistic integrity, thumbs up to them :)

Gleeful fanboyism at any level seems unavoidable. A review of the number of TW2 ratings is indicative.

true, I see 22 mostly perfect reviews for a game that's not even out yet. That 1/5 because gog does not offer exclusive DLC is the "best" :))

22 reviews, 437 ratings.

EDIT: Anyway, this has me feeling like a grouch aiming to get downvoted, so I better check out of this thread.

Publishers like Activision, EA, etc... all essentially buy these reviews. You're quite right to not trust them.

It's poor journalism and dishonest in the extreme.

I am just surprised, that even sites I trusted (like eurogamer) make no mention if this.

Basically, if someone doesn't want to read the article - the PC version was not provided and PS3 was unavailable because PSN is down. The reviewers were left with the Xbox360 version, with very buggy graphics and very broken multiplayer. The only consolation was the promise of a patch on release day.
That means that any pre-release reviews telling you how multiplayer feels were blatant lies. I am sceptical towards reviews, but this is just too much :)

Journalists are like sluts. Wave with some money under their noses and they'll do anything you want.

I don't care for any "professional" (read:bought) reviews since....well, since long ago.

I have pretty much given up on main-stream reviews at this point. The scores are inflated, and the reviewer often overlooks many of what I feel are glaring flaws and/or shortcomings. Instead, I just read blogs and forums about the game, or just get the straight dope from my friends that already have the game.

As for the article, I respect the reviewer for not only refusing to review a game he didn't have enough valid playtime on, but also for putting for the effort to explain WHY he decided not to review the game. That goes a long way to persuading me to believe what he says in any other review he may do. To say 'I don't know' is not a very easy thing to do, especially if you are expected to have an opinion. This. Ninja'd by seconds :).

I thought the idea of Yahtzee was that he's a critic rather than a reviewer?

Game reviews today are getting more and more pointless. For one thing they always review the 360 version and then apply that score to all versions. Secondly patches, day one and otherwise, are so common now that how the game plays a week before release is almost irrelevant. It used to be "well reviews tell you how the game plays when you get home with it." That is no longer the case though because patches are now delivered on day one while reviewers played code from before release.

On top of that reviews were never that informative to begin with. Unless your tastes magically match up with the reviewer's identically it's suspect at best. On top of that most reviews are poorly written, being more opinion than description and critique. Throw in the pointless numbers they shoehorn in at the end for ADHD sufferers and it's just a mess.

I make my buying decisions on gameplay video, the developer's history and past projects as well as word of mouth. I rarely buy a bad game.

Dude getting fired for bombing Kane & Lynch? Yeah, that's the long story short.

Don't read reviews. Play the game.

When a demo is available. Or some kind of trial.

Or when there is some honest gameplay footage out there.

I greatly appreciate Yahtzee's critique. He does often touch on some rather glaring problems which other reviewers conveniently seem to forget about. On the other hand he often misses the more fun things about a game. But somewhere between his reviews and the other reviews you'll find something looking like the truth.

But in the end, taste is subjective, and as such you can never trust a review fully. The closest you can do is to find someone with somewhat the same tastes as you. Know the person well enough to know which differences you have, and consider what that person says from your own point of view.

And just to chime in, proffessional reviews are often kinda far off, and the numbers themself are no indication either. I still remember reading the Half-Life 2 review from Gamespot at the time. Which were in text saying "This is a quite atmospheric but otherwise an unremarkable passable FPS gameplay wise. The sound design could be better. 9/10"

Wait you trusted reviews?

And what did you do to your avatar? And, more importantly, why would you do that to the poor guy?

I don't trust Gamezone's reviews all that much but they do have a fun feature in their reviews. You'll see a Gamezone rating of a game and then over to the right you'll see the players 'ratings. Funny to see totally different ratings from the review and the player base.

I trust this community's reviews of games more than anything official.