I dont really get this hate on pro reviewers. There is the problem of connection between big companies, ads and reviews but its just not fair. There are many places where reviews are honest and not created by PR specialists. The problem often is that people dont want reviews just affirmation of their opinion. My friend has written review of Call of Duty MW 3 giving it 5/10. Till this day he gets emails from people offending him for the review. He also got accused of lowering the score as a public stunt to get more views and stuff like that.

Edit: Also, another observation: The "old guard" of movie and literature critics (at least those I know) are _not_ writing for publications that _only_ deal with this form of entertainment. They are typically writing for mainstream media/news magazines that _also_ have a section about movies or books. And that's important, because it gives those critics independence. If a movie critic in a huge newspaper pans a movie, then the publisher might be angry and might even actually retract some ads, but they have by no means as much leverage as they'd have on a movie-specific magazine, where they pay for a much bigger share of the ads published in the medium.

Although it might sound counterproductive on first glance, I believe that one of the ways how gaming journalism could be made useful again is for gaming to become so mainstream that major publications allow professional critics to grow their own style, independent of the control that publishers can exert over game-specific publications.

POSTAL 2 IS A GREAT GAME AND PEOPLE WHO SAY OTHERWISE ARE IDIOT HIPPIES AND SHOULD BURN IN HELL !!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!111!!!1!!11111!1!!!!!! FUCK GAMESPOT !!!!11!!1!

Meh, I take critics with a grain of salt. I mostly buy based on if the game looks like my type of game and when I have the money. When I am looking at a review; DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS. I'm not going to pay attention to, "This game sucks, because it sucks the controls suck, and the grafix sux ballz!"

What is it about the controls that suck? Why do the graphics suck? Is it that there is too much clipping going on or what? What could they have done better?

This covers my opinion on the number rating system:
http://www.g4tv.com/videos/55954/sesslers-soapbox-i-hate-numbers/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QsXrswJ-yM
You go Sess!

edit: WATCH THAT YOUTUBE VIDEO!