IGN's review was crap. Complete and utter crap. I question the "console allegiance" of the person who wrote it, because while the claims aren't baseless, they're HARDLY as crippling as he makes them sound. He gives virtually no credit to the package on the whole, nor does he give any credit for fun factor. He ends up rating every single category a 9, but because the gameplay got a 7, the entire game gets a 7.
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense.
It just annoys me no end when high-profile sites like that produce such embarrassing reviews. GameSpot's is much better, although still a touch too harsh, IMO. If you didn't notice, Aaron reviewed it...and while I agree with most of what he said, I think he harps too much on the length. While I do believe it can - and does - affect a consumer's thought process ("do I really want to pay $60 for 6-8 hours?"), I don't believe it affects the QUALITY of the game, which is what I'm trying to score.
I'm not sure when we started having our review scores negatively impacted by the length of the game and "how good a buy" it is. I really don't think it should matter in the final numerical score, as we're grading quality...just because something is short or long; that doesn't have any impact on quality, UNLESS the game feels rushed or dragged out. I'm almost certain Aaron would've given the game the same score I did if it hadn't been so short, and I believe that's wrong. But hey, his opinion counts, too.
