Originally posted by Stradden

In any case, this isn't the thread to talk about whether or not you think our reviews are biased, etc. it's a place to talk about the direction that the format of our reviews should take in the future. We could continue arguing, but it's just going to boil down to the same stuff it always does. People are going to make accusations and I'm going to respond to them and no one will be more convinced of anything either way. 

If people want to think we're corrupt, then that's their perogative, I suppose. 

So, if I overreacted,then I apologize. I'm tired of having to defend myself from accusations against my integrity on a daily basis and I lashed out. 

 

In any case, let's get this back on topic please.

I feel no apologies are warranted. The poster outright accused you and other journalists of having their opinions bought, and then went on to explain his dream fantasy land where gaming journalists are treated like kings and showered with phat loot on the scale of Will Smiths ultra mega trailor. So you stomped on him hard with both feet. Great job in my book. The world of video game creation is not a glamorous one, and neither is the world of the video game critic.

That said back on track with what the article is about. I've always found the 1-10 scale to be laughably unreliable. When people like something they tend to treat it quite favorably, hence the astonishing number of 8 -10 ratings. When people do not like something they are less inclined to treat it favorably hence the disporpotionate number or 1-2 ratings and an quite a deficite in the 4-7 area.

So here is my idea. STOP RATING THESE GAMES AT ALL. At least numerically.

Instead just tell us what you liked and what you didn't like. And make sure your carefully explain why or why not. Telling me that the game UI feels clunky and difficult will help me out a hell of a lot more than you just saying on "I give it 7 out of 10".

As I explained earlier the 1 - 10 scale is badly skewed twards strong feelings one way or the other, so kick it aside. I recommend you simplify the whole thing by just making it a yes/no or hot/cold vote, because frankly you either liked it or didn't like it. Trying to split hairs by saying I liked it "this" much, is just self denial. End of problem.

Oh and before someone brings up the spector of "what about undecided", if you are a critic getting a hands on look at something and cannot make a decison as to whether you like it or not, you are in the wrong business. (I do suppose that an undecided category would work for an unreleased game, but honeslty I feel it is still a copout.)

Of course the new system won't stop we forum gladiators from yelling our heads off if we disagree with your yes/no vote, but you know what? I doubt even a prolonged global thermo nuclear war would be able to do that.

Oh and another idea would be for you to have more than one set of eyes on a product. Having more than one person expressing their thoughts in a review gives us a better idea of how they were impacted by the whole event. Of course in the case of previews such a thing may not be possible as it is hard enough to get one journalist into these little meetings. And as we both know Will Smith mega ultra trailors don't grow on trees.

I recommend that if you continue to use a rubric of any sort, please create a ridiculously detailed one for yourselves (not that we see) and have a series of workshops/classes for all of your reviewers to both teach the use of the rubric and get on the same wavelength.  I say this because historically on this site, a 7 will signify a total mess from one guy, and the best thing on the market from another guy.  You have reviewers that give pity points, and reviewers that don't.  The numbers have become almost meaningless.

Not only that, but everything comes out as a B- to B+.  If everyone's going to 'pass' anyway, and all the marks fall within a target area, what's the point in continuing to generate marks?

I actually suggest that you leave behind the current system.  Discard the rubric, and discard the single reviewer.  Have several of your employees do simultaneous reviews highlighting the merits and flaws that they perceived during a play period (making certain that they do not play with or talk to each other about their reviews until after they've been submitted) so that we get a more well-rounded impression.  Let's hear from the bitches AND the pushovers at the same time, instead of one or the other as we have been.

Alternatively, have one employee round up a bunch of non-employee volunteers on the site to do the same thing: play the game for a period and report their fun and frustrations.  Then the employee compiles a review from the myriad sources, citing them, and giving a more community-generated impression.  A review from one point of view about an MMO really seems to miss the point anyway.  I want to hear from the guy that loved it, the guy that sees potential, the guy that broke his keyboard from how much he hated it, and the guy that went 'meh' and couldn't bring himself to do much with it.  Multi-player review for a multi-player game.  As it is right now, I think most of us are rejecting the reviews you post, and reading the litany of comments afterwards to try and get a more realistic impression than the review managed to give in the first place.

Basically, fix your rubric system and get everyone implementing it onto the same wavelength, or ditch the rubric and use the conflicting wavelengths to create a better review.  I vote the second option, but that one takes more balls on your part.  *^_^*

Multiple reviewers is a great idea. Two people discussing the game can present more evolved ideas and discussion points than just one reveiwer, and differing opinions bring perspective to the various facets of the games.

Come on. Siskell and Ebert, guys. It's a no brainer! :-)

Originally posted by rygard49

Multiple reviewers is a great idea. Two people discussing the game can present more evolved ideas and discussion points than just one reveiwer, and differing opinions bring perspective to the various facets of the games.

I agree, sounds like a plan, if you can find more reviewers willing to spend time on a new MMORPG (which for the AAA titles shouldn't be hard to achieve).

And make it 2 people with a very different opinion and taste in MMO games, that'd make it more interesting to read.

Also, if you really want to get rid of the rating system and get radical, do it like Rottentomatoes.com, like Tardcore said, a review with a simple 'yes' or 'no' as end conclusion.

I'd expand on it though and make it 'yes', 'no' or 'maybe'.

And do it for different types of gamers, like 'sandbox gamer', 'themepark gamer' and the Bartle archetypes like explorer, achiever or socializer, so a game could be a 'yes' for a themepark gamer but a no for a sandbox gamer and a maybe for an explorer.

Just throwing out some ideas

Here's my 2 cents.

I literally read every post/comment to this thread and while some great ideas were posted I still don't think the real problem is being addressed. As a personal rule, I don't like or trust video game reviews (MMOs or otherwise) done by the gaming media as it stands in this day and age. For one thing, they're not "reviews". They're exaggerated opinions labeled as a "review". In order for journalistic integrity to be upheld, a real REVIEW needs to be objective. Yes REVIEWS can be objective. Just because 90% of the gaming media aren't objective doesn't mean that they shouldn't be. The gaming media likes to use the excuse that because they themselves are fans of the genre  most if not all professional journalistic integrity has to be thrown out of the window and so then it's impossible to deliver an objective REVIEW. To that notion I say Bull%$^&! Until that attitude and notion is addressed and changed, you're going to always have the disconnect that exists between your so called "reviews" and whatever rating scale is being used. It doesn't matter what kind of scale you use (this very site is attempting to change their scale once again). Until you all are able to put the "gamer" part of yourself aside long enough for a "review" to stay journalistically objective, nothing's ever going to change and every three or so years you'll attempt to do again what you're doing now.    You ever notice that the preview to any given game is overtly positive and the person previewing the game swears up and down that it's the best thing since sliced bread and then when the review hits (unless its a tripple A title and even those suffer), its all "bring out your pitchforks",  and "crucify him". You guys (the gaming media) are flattering yourselves calling this crap that you write a "review". They're mostly filled with "what I didn't like", "what I wished they would have done" and I'm sorry but thats monday morning water cooler talk. IE - An opinion. I have absolutely nothing against personal opinions. I love and welcome them. My problem is reading up to sometimes 3 web pages worth of nothing but personal opinions and it being called a "review". The other part of that problem is when people who can't think for themselves read these negative opinions or better yet, just look at the box score (because seldom do the "review" and the box score match up) and say to themselves - "man that game must really suck" and in turn don't buy it . I've lost count of how many games got a safe score/review or negative score/review that I absolutely loved.  As it stands now, I'd trust another developer "reviewing" a game in a heartbeat as opposed to the gaming media because at least with another developer, they understand what goes into crafting a game and why they may have chose to do "A" instead of "B". It's just not coming from a pure place where the gaming media is concerned. As to MMORPG reviews, I like the 3 prong approach that some have suggested here. It makes the most sense in terms of  the way an MMO is played. 

I believe that the reviewers of this site go too easy on the features of a game that should be downright unacceptable in the MMORPG industry and they cushion the impact of those features to save face with developers so they can be invited to private play sessions and interviews.

Although, if they constantly played the role of "mmorpg watchdog", they would never be invited to anything and would quickly fall out of business. In a paradox, their need to survive directly conflicts with their their desire to be unbiased. They can't help it, that is just the nature of not only the industry but also the entire world's capitalist society. It doesn't pay the bills to be honest and although they try, they cannot ever be 100% brutally honest about anything or they will never make any friends. I believe they try to stay as unbiased as possible but are restricted by too many factors.

I blame society, not the MMORPG.com staff.

At least they didn't sell out like MMOHUT and call Allods "The biggest MMO of the year".

I always kinda liked the multi reviewer style.  Have three reveiwers, (with their backgrounds and play preferences listed) and then each have a short blurb dissecting their likes and dislikes of the game.  Sometimes you get some really great opposing points about the game, and the reader can value these points based on which playstyle they identify with. 

As for the grading scale, it does help to have that sense of standardization there, but I think few people actually buy games based on ratings score.  It might be a better indicator of interest in the game and maybe corollate it with the number of page hits or article hits for that game, but overall I'm more interested in the reviewers thoughts than than the numbers.

Thanks for posting an article like this BTW, always like to see it when sites are trying to improve their quality through consumer participation.

Originally posted by Xero_Chance

I believe that the reviewers of this site go too easy on the features of a game that should be downright unacceptable in the MMORPG industry and they cushion the impact of those features to save face with developers so they can be invited to private play sessions and interviews.

Although, if they constantly played the role of "mmorpg watchdog", they would never be invited to anything and would quickly fall out of business. In a paradox, their need to survive directly conflicts with their their desire to be unbiased. They can't help it, that is just the nature of not only the industry but also the entire world's capitalist society. It doesn't pay the bills to be honest and although they try, they cannot ever be 100% brutally honest about anything or they will never make any friends. I believe they try to stay as unbiased as possible but are restricted by too many factors.

I blame society, not the MMORPG.com staff.

But it's quite hard to do a review without being biased, otherwise you just end up with a list of features accompanied with a description and you can pretty much find the same thing on said MMO's website. It's quite normal for a reviewer to view a feature as perfectly acceptable even if someone else disagrees. Just like you can't make the most "carebear" reviewer go review the most hardcore FFA PvP MMORPG with full loot and Perma Death, or the most hardcore reviewer to review Hello Kitty Online. So I really have to disagree with you that MMORPG.com is simply trying to avoid being too much of a "mmorpg watchdog", and rather that reviewers simply have different opinions on common features.

In fact, I'll go ahead and say that it's simply impossible to make a suitable review without being biased.

I haven't read a game review since YouTube was invented.  I watch gameplay videos on YouTube and decide if I'll try the game or not.  No review I've ever read has given me more insight about a game than watching a 5 minute gameplay video has given me.

We live in the Web 2.0 era, you're behind the times already only having written reviews.  If you really want to distingush yourself from the rest of the gaming sites on the web than video reviews is the way to go.  Sure, some sites are already doing this, like Game Trailers, but they aren't MMO specific, and honestly, the reviews I've seen on there aren't great.

As far as the actual grading/reviewing process I would recommend a combination of a lot of what I've seen here.

First thing to do would be to get rid of any grading scale at all.  You can still have ratings (because the majority of people need that), but make it very simple.  I would suggest a "Buy", "Try" or "Skip" rating scale.  Self explanitory, no room for confusion.

Second the review needs to be 3 parts, as many have suggested.  Start with a first impressions on day of release, or a week or so later.  

Two weeks later, more indepth information on how the game plays, technical information, etc.

Then after 30 days give the final review with the Buy, Try, or Skip rating attached at the end.  This would be a review of parts 1 and 2 + additional information like progression info, griding scale, etc.

And of course, ALL IN VIDEO FORMAT!

Edit:  The reason I suggest a 3 part review is because if you do one on day 1, and then one on day 30, people  will have lost interest.  Having a shorter time span between each part keeps people's attention.

I would actually watch the reviews on here if they were done like this!

Is it time, perhaps, to ditch the curve?

http://www.mmorpg.com/faq.cfm/showFaq/15/The-scores-on-the-game-list-all-just-drastically-changed-what-is-happening.html

Why should scores be inflated and merely not graded on their own merits? Why does CrappyCo's game's score get inflated just because Stellar Inc made something so awesome?

Have you seen the overwhelming opinion about the current trend of games? Many people aren't happy and people reply with "This site gave it an 8.[x], it's probably just that you're wrong.".

Use your scoring system because as to the weight of categories because yes, "Sound" isn't that important when compared to "Community".

Maybe me not paying $15 to Blizzard, Trion, or Bioware won't make a difference but maybe when they see their product roll out with a 5.8 (exxagerated), they'll get the point. I might not have any influence, but you do.

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

Originally posted by Xero_Chance

I believe that the reviewers of this site go too easy on the features of a game that should be downright unacceptable in the MMORPG industry and they cushion the impact of those features to save face with developers so they can be invited to private play sessions and interviews.

Although, if they constantly played the role of "mmorpg watchdog", they would never be invited to anything and would quickly fall out of business. In a paradox, their need to survive directly conflicts with their their desire to be unbiased. They can't help it, that is just the nature of not only the industry but also the entire world's capitalist society. It doesn't pay the bills to be honest and although they try, they cannot ever be 100% brutally honest about anything or they will never make any friends. I believe they try to stay as unbiased as possible but are restricted by too many factors.

I blame society, not the MMORPG.com staff.

 

 

In fact, I'll go ahead and say that it's simply impossible to make a suitable review without being biased.

This.  

It boggles my mind how people think a review can be churned out of an algorithm.  A (re)VIEW is just some's perspective.  Reviews can be formatted and reformatted but they are still just opinions.  Having said that, I'm liking some ideas like the multiple reviewers and standardizing which elements MUST be in the review (but certainly others should get to be in if the author chooses).  I read some of the authors for their writing style and the others I just skip.  Reviews are ultimately like 5% of my decision making process.  Gameplay videos and free trials make up the rest for me.  

There's so much emotion hiding behind some of these responses it just blows me away.

There are two problems though

• These sites are supposed to be as unbiased as can be. Sometimes you can recognize your own bias and sometimes you cannot.
• Nearlly every game gets a good review. I'm not hating on the review sites but it seems to me and many players that they are bound and determined to give a game a positive review if at all possible. Perhaps, for instance, they might be a little easier on the smaller companies, than say DCUO, but is that fair? Is it fair for a reviewer to ignore certain aspects? Some of these games, are not worthy of 7.5s.

It's hard to really balance these things.

I mean, does an indie game get leeway since it had so much less money?  How much leeway?  Should game that spent 50 million get more leeway then one that spent 100 million?

I think basic things should be rated in some way.  Like UI, art, graphics. 

But when it comes down to the gameplay and functions, you should just point out facts.  Does it work well.  Does combat feel clunky.  Are animations choppy.  Just give information.  If you wish to give your opinion, save it for the end.

One reveiwer can talk about the game, and you could have, let's say five, that "rate" it.  But this is not an A, B, C, D or 1-10 system.  But more of a system of how much you want to keep playing this game and would recommend it to others.

So the left side of the bar is red, leaning more towards saying , no rush to try it out.  1/4 maybe means, give it some time.  The middle point could be mean the game will be fun for some, but might not be for everyone.  As far to the right as you could go means, even if you don't enjoy  "sandbox" or "F2P", you should try the game out.

Of course, these 5 reviewers are the same five every review who rate each game. None of them HAVE to be the one to write the main review.  You could also have a link before their rating to show what sorts of games/mmos they enjoy.  After their "bar" rating, they give details, ie pros-cons.

Hell, you could have five forum posters who would work on this with you to also post their feelings.  Five staff reviewers and five posters (who meet certain standards set by you guys, but these people could change for each game, who also mention the games/mmos they enjoy/dislike).

What it really comes down to, is was the game fun enough to keep playing.  It just becomes subjective sooner or later.  But laying out as much information with as little opinion as possible for the REVIEW is the best way to go. Save the opinions for the end, and show what the rater likes, in regards to gaming.  If you hated GW1, and rate GW2, you should mention you did not like the first (as that COULD affect the score).  I do think a review a few weeks later as people progress through the game more, a great idea.  They sort of "update" their pre/review.

I will admit, some games do seem to be rated rather high compared to how they are doing in the industry and how much fun they seem to be to most people.  Games should not be rated JUST for the niche audience.  You are more then welcome to mention "It's great if you enjoy FFA PvP with looting", but shouldn't give it a 7.5 just for that, let's say.

I liked the original system better.  But I think there should also be a less structured opinion section where the "feel" of the writer should be talked about. Sometimes that doesn't equate to a number.  Also, whenever possible, more than one writer should weigh in on the review. Have two or three other writers throw in a paragraph or two.  I think the reviews I have seen like that are more effective and even if I don't agree with the primary reviewer's opinion (*cough* DCUO) I can accept that his/her peers have similar opinions or even differing.

As long as they are asking for money, they should be reviewed the minute they get it, they being the publishers, developers, whomever. There is no such thing as too early once the door is open.

If you're using a scale, use the whole scale.  And if you need to make exceptions for games that won't even run properly or function as intended...don't try to apply it to the scale.  I am rather tired of reviewers in general bending over backwards to make games work or giving special exceptions to the game and they still end up with decent scores.

For instance, let's just say for instance that an MMO came out tomorrow and it crashed so often that it became a nuisance to even get it to run.  This would alter any paying customers perception of the game enough so that even if the game was fun as could be, they will tire of the constant issues.   So, it's unfair to judge this game on every other aspect of it, when "Stability" is an obvious hinderance to everything to do with the game.  Most places will break down the scores into categories, but if one is so bad that it overpowers the others entirely...the game would still score decently if not better than most due to other portions being strong.

So......how can you score a game and be fair?  I don't think you can make everyone happy, but I think giving a game with obvious game breaking bugs and stability issues anything over a 5 is a disservice to gaming in general.  It just isn't acceptable to release a barely working game and collect money from people who were "deceived" by non-biased scoring systems.

A couple ideas for scoring then:

If you do "grade" scores.  When you give a game a C it should be 90-95% stable with average gameplay.  Where the basics of the game is there and it could be fun for some, but overall it's nothing special.

A and B scores should differentiate between interesting mechanics, new things you think really bring something to the genre.  Exceptional animations, sounds, graphics.....stuff like that.

D and F scores.  In my opinion an F should be given to unstable games, or games where DRM (never seems to apply to MMOs but who knows where we'll end up eventually) interfere with playing them at all.  D should be for games with medium to severe stability issues.  IE, if zones go down every couple hours...that's a medium.  If they go down every 30 minutes, that's severe.  If they crash once a day and come back up in 15 minutes and stick around all day, that's a light stability issue.  If the game is just no good, stable or not..then we get back into these letter grades, but these games seem to be fairly few and far between.  So..I think the majority of your games are only going to end up in F and D if they are unstable. 

Most F2P mmos would be C and maybe B...I haven't seen any I would give an A to.  They especially shouldn't be given high scores when they are still in beta stages, because they seem to get more draconian when they go "retail" and more stuff moves into cash shop.  Which if you can't enjoy a Free 2 Play game without paying money, I question it's categorization as "F2P".

I also think beyond what normal games are judged on...MMOs have more factors that impact enjoyment.

Gold Farmers, Gold Sellers, Spammers, Griefing, Cheating like Aimbotting on FPSMMO (For instance APB atm),  Botting (WoW bots, it's no fun to play with computer controlled "Player characters".

If the above list is noticeable during a review, it's probably 20x worse for players.  If they don't improve on the problems during your review....you should knock their score.  Because stuff like that absolutely ruins MMOs overtime.

And, I really wouldn't mind seeing biased reviews.  If someone is biased against a MMO genre....and they end up liking it after the review.  I would be more impressed by that than if someone who likes the genre gives it a positive review.

In general, just don't be afraid to tank a game on the score board if it has obvious failing points during the review.  Spell out the failing points, make the score reflect how bad they bugged you.  And hopefully it will kick the devs in the pants to work on the problems, because overall there is almost no outlet for the normal player to complain about issues in games.  Everyone is too busy waiting for devs to fix problems......it seems they are willing to overlook everything...and very little ends up getting addressed.

A scoring system similar to what one tv show does with movies would probably work best for me.  The movie scores are "buy", "rent", or "pass".  With MMOs it could be "buy", "free trial", or "pass".  A number score doesn't really tell you how the reviewer really feels about the game.  I have read numerous reviews for games where I got to the end and thought "wow this reviewer really like/hated this game" then I got to the score and thought it was the complete opposite. 

Basically a buy rating would mean the reviewer was really enjoying the time spent in game.  This should mean it is not overly buggy and has plenty of interesting things to do from the reviewers point of view. 

A free trial rating would mean it seemed like a cool idea but maybe was a little too buggy or didn't quite fit the reviewers playstyle.

Pass would mean the game seemed like a bug ridden pile of contentless garbage.

As a previous poster pointed out it would be nice to have a bio on each reviewer stating at the very least what three games he/she has spent the most time playing as well as what the reviewer is currently playing at time of review.  Including prefered playstyle may also be nice as in crafter, pve, pvp, solo, group, casual, etc.

Originally posted by Dameonk

I haven't read a game review since YouTube was invented.  I watch gameplay videos on YouTube and decide if I'll try the game or not.  No review I've ever read has given me more insight about a game than watching a 5 minute gameplay video has given me.

We live in the Web 2.0 era, you're behind the times already only having written reviews.  If you really want to distingush yourself from the rest of the gaming sites on the web than video reviews is the way to go.  Sure, some sites are already doing this, like Game Trailers, but they aren't MMO specific, and honestly, the reviews I've seen on there aren't great.

As far as the actual grading/reviewing process I would recommend a combination of a lot of what I've seen here.

First thing to do would be to get rid of any grading scale at all.  You can still have ratings (because the majority of people need that), but make it very simple.  I would suggest a "Buy", "Try" or "Skip" rating scale.  Self explanitory, no room for confusion.

Second the review needs to be 3 parts, as many have suggested.  Start with a first impressions on day of release, or a week or so later.  

Two weeks later, more indepth information on how the game plays, technical information, etc.

Then after 30 days give the final review with the Buy, Try, or Skip rating attached at the end.  This would be a review of parts 1 and 2 + additional information like progression info, griding scale, etc.

And of course, ALL IN VIDEO FORMAT!

Edit:  The reason I suggest a 3 part review is because if you do one on day 1, and then one on day 30, people  will have lost interest.  Having a shorter time span between each part keeps people's attention.

I would actually watch the reviews on here if they were done like this!

 

Ok. Now I like this idea. This makes perfect sense

I wrote a thread on this subject on 4/04/11 http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/312136/MMORPG-needs-a-new-review-scoring-system.html  I'm just going to paste it here.

Thanks for listening!

A couple of suggestions from my side.

Score

Stick to the 10 Point scale. As you say, it works well with MetaCritic and you want your reviews to appear over there as well. But [1] enforce consistency and assign each number with a [2] proper meaning, which you should also [3] spell out right next to the number or by providing a link to a rating policy page, where you may also conveniently explain your criteria. The reviewer should first have a verdict, only then translate it to the scale. Here is a take with keeping in mind that 5 should be the true average.

• 10 — Perfect
• 09 — Excellent
• 08 — Very Good
• 07 — Good
• 06 — Above Average
• 05 — Average
• 04 — Below Average
• 03 — Bad
• 02 — Atrocious
• 01 — Abysmal

• Character Creation: breadth (many options), depth (option has many settings)
• Usability: from installing to playing, how convenient and smooth does it feel like. Is it intuitive, clunky, responsive ...
• Sophistication: in lieu of a better word: is it ripe, how many and how severe are bugs, how feature complete is it?
• Core Game: there is a play pattern at the heart of any MMO that is repeated over and over, mostly combat wrapped in quests. How is the quality of that? Too many skills to use? It is too repetetive? Does it grow old quickly?
• Scope: breath and depth are adequate terms to describe what to expect as well. Does it offer more than other games on release? Does it have few large and awesome features? Is it more a collection of many minigames? Has it enough PVP and PVP. What about crafting?
• Balance: There are many kinds of balances, not just between classes. How about the ratio between action and downtimes. What about difficulty on your level? Can you outheal the opponent? Are other classes so much easier to play?
• Presentation: I'd lump graphics and sound into that one, and other production values. Be careful with rating graphics merely from a technical point of view. MMOs are geared at large audiences and state-of-the-art is usually not the priority. Where it ends up depends on many factors, some deliberate (maybe the game is aimed at an older demographic expected to have more outdated machines) and some more or less coincidential (development time, rule of thumb etc.). It would be unfair to rate down a game for a certain deliberate strategy. Rather, look at art style, concistency, quality in the substance (lighting, atmosphere, personality etc.) and the like.
• Innovation: I am bit hesistant with this one. I think it is overrated. A genre simply has certain genre characteristics and the community and some reviewers on this site places too much emphasis on it. You would have to find out whether its bad to have the basic DikuMUD Gameplay and if different approaches should yield better scores. Every game is different and most games have their own take on known features at least. So I remain skeptical with this.
• Fun: The game could totally suck at anything and still be super fun. This might be the Joker card that influences the final score the most.
• Social: I feel this should show up somewhere as well, but don't judge whether most players of this game are douche, but at how game features condense in the community. Keep in mind that drama is good in some games and detrimental in others. Also, some things are really opinions, like if mandatory grouping is a good thing. Remain impartial on that one. But if grouping is strongly discouraged, dungeon finder teleporting makes it so that you never see anyone anymore and the like, there are too many player hubs so there is none, these  are  reasons to consider. Also did the devs introduce rally points (factions, alliances, guild features) to identify with, and does it pan out well? Do the emotes have a positive impact?

Generally, many reviews I've read had too much focus on the reviewer, what the person personally likes and dislikes rather than strongly reflected on the game itself (wait. I get to that). It often read like apologizing in advance or dodging bullets that commentors may shoot. Personal preferences could be outsourced to introduction / profile pages of the reviewer, possibly adhering to some standards, like the classifications mentioned above. So you don't want to read too much of "I am personally fine with Kill Ten Rat Quests, but Jade Doe may not like this." The key information here would be that the game is full of these quests and the reader will know what to make of it. Likewise, I don't want the reviewer to point out that players who don' like PVP will not like this game. I want them to point out that PVP is mandatory or that there is little else beside it. If things are merely described, keep it tight. If you analyze, stay away from "No Shit, Sherlock?" territory. If you offer an opinion, it should be "reasonable". Generally, I have no qualms with that one, usually seems to be the case..

I miss a certain standard of journalism in gaming and I guess games are not considered a matured medium, unless game journalism is more mature as well. It could also be more unexpected at times, like Gonzo Journalism in Middle Earth. You could also show more Genre Savvy-ness at times. A word or two could be said about all the corny clichés that reappear in any new next-gen incarnation. It's boring to poke fun at Elves and Orcs per se, why not go step further and make fun of all the ridiculous "conventions". I already gave you some links to start looking (but be warned, it will ruin your life).

TLDR.