I am getting pretty frustrated around the forums with the number of people who think it's cool to be cynical and say that game journalism is in the toilet because previews are too positive.

I think the only way anybody could say this is if they're having a terminal misunderstanding of what a preview is about. What are you going to say about an unfinished game? Nothing you'd be afraid you'd have to retract when the retail version came out that's for sure. Considering that the developers have a potentially infinite amount of time to fix anything wrong in your preview build, what's the point of bashing things that might not even make it into the final game? Plus, if you spend that time praising the things that are good about the preview game, maybe the developers will take that as a hint and leave it alone or even enhance it. If you read enough previews, you'll realize the complaints are there, just worded subtly to ensure that they're not taken as heavy handed criticism of something that simply isn't done. Statements like "we hope the attention to detail seen in the graphics of [gameX] carries over into its gameplay and control mechanisms" are pretty common, and what are they but a veiled comment that the graphics so far look great, but the gameplay isn't there (yet). Saying anything stronger at that point in the process would be silly.

Ideas? Am I missing the mark myself?