Damn, I posted in a thread similar to this and it ended up being in an old, dead forum. Three cheers for the search function...?

Do you guys trust gaming reviews given by popular gaming websites? Why/why not?

I haven't trusted a big website / big magazine game review in a long, long time because I believe they all have ulterior motives. Some are quite clear---business model dependent on physical product sold, advertising dollar revenue, etc. Looking past that for a second, however: no standard grading scale exists beyond what is defined by each individual outlet. Some may give scores out of 10, some out of 5. Some use decimals; some round their scores to the nearest integer. Some could give letter grades. Some may choose to use a five-star scale with fractional star possibilities. Some may adopt a hamburger scale, adding a slice of cheese to the sections they liked best. Some might give out waffles for bad games and ponies for great games! Some of these are silly, but it's tough to take seriously when there's no set standard, ya know? Beyond that, I cannot read their wordy explanations of why they scored X section of Y game without viewing it as fluff to justify an end. My personal rule of thumb: I take any review written by anyone who has been given an advanced copy of the game with a gallon of salt.

I try not to read them. That's a lot of salt to ingest at one time.

The only reviews I actively seek are reviews from gamers weeks/months after the game's release; however, even that warrants a bit of caution. You have to wade through the people who write reviews for the sake of writing them. Some people don't have the balls to give a scathing review to a game that deserves it. Some are too blinded by nostalgia. Some reviewers can't isolate a game from an impressive franchise of great games (i.e. Final Fantasy) in order to judge it on its own merits/weaknesses. On the opposite end, some reviewers get too picky with the small stuff. Some are too critical of a game overall---perhaps motivated by some unreasonable stimuli like loyalty to a rival video game company or game console. Perhaps they're intentionally trolling for a response; perhaps they wish for X game company to ultimately fail and try to add fuel to the flames any way they can. It's not an exact science.

I still think there's more honesty in a handful of reviews by gamers than a bucket full of game magazine reviews if given enough time. That 2 week-to-2 months window of patience gives the ugly truth about a game enough time to sizzle under the light of scrutiny, thrust there by the mob of gamers who aren't motivated by magazine sales, ad sales or corporate buy-offs to give a game an undeserving high score.

My most reliable litmus test for new games will always be my friends, as they have very similar tastes in games and I already know their personal biases ahead of time.