This has been going on for at least 8 years now.

Step 1: Gamespot hypes some game about a year or two before release.
Step 2: Gamespot keeps hyping it.
Step 3: Game is released, sucks.
Step 4: Nobody notices that they wasted their money because Gamespot is back at step 1 with the next company to offer them a nice junket in exchange for a good preview.

As far as I'm concerned this is the life cycle of every Peter Molyneux project ever. "Wow I heard Peter Molyneux is working on Black and White! Sure his older game sucked but it had so much potential so I think this time it will work!" "Oh boy Black and White is coming out, better pimp my rig to get ready!" <play Black and White for 2 days trying to find redeeming value> "Did you hear Peter Molyneux is working on a new game? I bet it will rock soooo much!" As far as I'm concerned, Peter Molyneux owes me $50.

Free trials/demos are my only gauge now. If a developer can't be bothered to put together a little subset of their game as a tech demo for me at release, or offer me a 1-2 week trial to their subscription service with a downloadable client before charging me a monthly fee, I can't be bothered to beta test their buggy boring crap at my own expense.

When a new game gets pimped too heavily by a gaming "journalism" entity, I stay the hell away.

People buy into hype is what he's getting at. Halo 3 sold well because all your friends were getting it and it was everywhere. It didn't sell because it reinvented the FPS, god no -- it sold because gamers wanted to be a part of the Halo phenomenon on day one.

It's weird how people listen to game critics, but not so much film and television critics as stated in the article. However, the writer does say that film reviews about The Phantom Menace were very positive, and while they weren't as harsh as they could have/should have been, they weren't 100% favorable either.

The critics were a lot more charitable toward episode 3, but I'm assumming it's only because their expectations were so low by then. Mine were too but I was still let down, thanks to their generous reviews. Hmph.

But back to gaming, the opinions of the writer, a reviewer himself, have to be taken with a grain of salt. Are the games he considers underrated really underrated, or does he just think so because other people don't like them as much as he does?

At the end of the day, unless you're sure you're going to love something, you should always try it out first. I try games out now before I buy just as I listen to songs before I buy an album. I look at reviews, but don't base decisions off them.

The fact that games sell more through virtue of hype rather than quality is obvious . The games with the "better" gameplay out there without a powerful hype machine behind them usually go generally unnoticed, while shitty games get all the attention in the world due to the programming houses having a powerful publisher at their back. I think Crysis is a good example of such a game - the game has been super hyped due to its new generation graphics engine (and granted it does look sweet), but the gameplay is generally just a rehash of Farcry along with the same shitty AI. I predict it'll sell well, but honestly it's a very 2004'ish experience. Other games come to mind such as Hellgate:London and Call of Duty IV, both with sweet graphics, but the gameplay leaves you with a bad case of the "blahs", when compared to "better quality" games. Granted quality is a matter of personal preferance, but none of the games I've mentioned have the "sazz" to live up to the hype spun around them.

"The reason Halo sells so absurdly well is because of its marketing, not its quality." Thank god at least one reviewer out there gets it. But beyond my Halo hating, do you find that reviews drive your purchases or informed decisions?