Why is that? They could have easily done it of their own accord.

Because if they did it because they were ordered they wouldn't be fired, whereas if they did it on their own they're likely to be terminated.

With extreme prejudice.

On a side note, anybody here played the game? How is it? I liked the looks of it, not being a "hardcore" adventurer.

After looking in the article on the op, it looks like gamespot is pissed because they didn't get an early copy. Maybe gamespot wouldn't have released this article, if they would have gotten an early release of the game...

Actually even tried playing Uncharted 3?

just watched someone stream the game , looks like a rip off of Fahrenheit , they just changed the story that's all rest every thing is same :X , same ways to die , action scenes , mashing button to hold on something or climb

Ahh, the polite way of saying "beaten to death by a crowbar".

Time to rate it Zero on PS3, 360 and PC versions to punish them.

No, that's why I'm asking, because I've heard the same criticisms of Uncharted 3, move off the scripted path and inexplicably collapse dead on the ground. If that's different that would seem to be a similar method of gameplay even though one doesn't have a big button flash up in your face.
No one got review copies, that's why there were no professional reviews on launch.

I don't think it's despicable at all. They don't seem to have left more than one review and they are, in fact, a user of their product. Is it unethical for their family members, who have played the game, to rate the game as well? How about anyone who knows them? Their 10 score is far more legitimate than morons like ChickenHero who will rate a product a 0 to "punish" the companies and haven't played the games. It's far more despicable when people who haven't played a game rate a game a zero because of some perceived slight against them, be it DRM, cosmetic DLC, or the game is just "too" popular.

These people get touted on gog as if they're doing something constructive, when in reality they're showing how many childish gamers are.

I think it's kind of a stupid thing to do, but user reviews, especially on metacritic are already a joke. Especially for popular franchises like Call of Duty.

It's fine if they rate a game as a user, but the concept of journalistic integrity exists in the field of journalism for a reason, the lack of the same concept here is what is pissing people off. As I said before, there's a crap-ton of channels for devs and publishers to promote the hell out of their games, the few user channels with critical mass that exist should probably be left to actual end users (and if you think a developer of product A is the same as an end user of product A just because they happen to employ the functions of product A I cannot help you).
And they did it when there was one professional review and one other user review (iirc).

the real problem is that developers are starting to feel compelled to favourably review their own games in public because so many potential day-1-buyers base their purchases on review scores.

the other reason is fanboyism and bias. some people will rate a game low simply because they don't like it, because they're playing a competitor's game or because they dislike something about the publisher in question. this can drag down the score average and put off potential buyers. developers see themselves forced to post positive reviews to balance overly negative ones.

it's a huge problem as gaming criticism has become intertwined with marketing and advertisement.

I'm not referring to "they" as the company, but "they" as the employees of said company.

Once again you're using rhetoric to attempt to support your point (that last sentence at the end). It doesn't contribute to the debate, and it just makes you look lazy. The developers of product A are a subset of the end users of product A. You act as if it's unheard of for developers to use their products after release. It's not as if their four scores of 10 will have a noticeable impact on the score as a whole. That's the point of crowdsourcing reviews a la metacritic's user reviews. The idea is that bias, positive or negative, will be alleviated by a large number of reviews by people. This, of course, fails more often than it succeeds, but the bias always trends toward negative reviews. Look at Modern Warfare 3 or Jurassic Park reviews if you want any evidence.