Nice trick Gamespot, rate a game in its beta stage. Don't believe the Gamespot review, read the player reviews instead.
"The game has uninteresting generic quests and has no story arc"
"What quests are on hand are generally boring. A town elder may ask you to train a few residents so that they can better fight off bandits, or run across the land in search of a certain amount of wheat or butter."
Ok, if you need a story to enjoy a game, stay away. However as someone who doesn't feel strongly either way I can state that this in no hampered my enjoyment of the game. And do you guys know another game with generic/repetitive missions? The critically acclaimed Sid Meier's Pirates!, which Gamespot gave a 9.2.
"There isn't any guidance provided as to which place you should visit first, so you're left cruising around on a piebald nag with no particular place to go"
Well I don't know, maybe the TRAINING FIELD that you start next to? Perhaps visit the nearby towns/castles and ask the lord for help? Seriously, unless you have NEVER player a video game before this won't be a problem for you.
"Every lord and king has a listing in an encyclopedia that you can bring up on demand. But these entries aren't entirely thorough, giving you only a brief rundown of the major players in the land. The backdrop is always busy with various wars, villages being looted, and castles being besieged, although you feel more like a hapless spectator than a wannabe hero with anything at stake during all of this conflict. You generally don't receive a lot of solid answers."
The reviewer has a point with the answers part, but is utterly wrong on the being hapless part. At the beginning the is obviously true, for good reason, you are an adventurer, not a freakin' general. As you build up your army however, you can change the political landscape quicker than all the background events ever could.
"Orders on the fly are just about nonexistent, which leaves you to simply tell your troops to charge into the fray and help out by cracking a few skulls yourself."
Do this against a superior army and (even if you are skilled enough to preserve yourself) your army will be cut down. Seriously, if you can't order your archers to hold position on top of hills or on one side of a river, lead your cavalry to flank, order your infantry to scatter in the presence of archers or bunch up in the presence of cavalry, all of which can be done very smoothly, it isn't the game that's lacking.
Finally I would like to speak about what bothers me most. The fact that the reviewers didn't even wait for the full version to some out. That's right, the Gamespot review was written for the prereleased version, so many of the problems they mentions could well be fixed...