I'm aware many gamers' experiences will be completely different to mine so I guess I try to be careful these days not to label for instance Rare games --which have an extremely enthusiastic following though I don't personally care for them-- overrated. But I don't think reviewers are justified in handing out 9 and 10 scores free with corn flakes provided the game has Halo, Mario, Street Fighter or Zelda in the title. It does a lot of harm to the reviewers' credibility and raises a lot of awkward questions about the objectivity of such reviews.
The most guilty parties seem to be IGN, Screwattack and Famitsu, but most publications do it in my opinion.
I also think that a common misconception among reviewers is that a well made game necessarily means a great game. Part of the problem are these elaborate scoring systems which go too far in quantifying the value of a videogame and therefore guarantee that a game can't possibly be judged as bad or mediocre if it is loaded to the eyeballs with content, extra modes and unlockables (Halo, Call of Duty) or if it is extremely well programmed and polished (Uncharted, Mario and Zelda). Still, even if we have to settle for this format forever, I still think a more critical style than what we're used to seeing is both possible and desirable.
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