do reviews rule you?

Nope. I mean after I've played the game I will go and see what other people have thought of it but I don't normally read reviews. I like going into a game without really knowing much of it, same with a movie. Then again, I'm not a gamer... just a Pokemon/RPGer and 2D-Fighter.

Gamespot gave infamous 2 a 7.5. I won't be taking their reviews seriously anymore.

I though it was the best super hero game I ever played. G4 game Alice the madness returns a 2 and its pretty good if you don't knit pick it to death, but then again I love the random wonderland stuff anyway.

food for thought.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/3587-Game-Reviews

This is why I never tried to review any of my VNs... lol

for me... it's all about the game play. not much of a person who relies too much on ratings. IMHO ^^

User Scores > Critic Scores.

The first one is normally pooled from multiple people.

and in general i trust user reviews more.

normally I only read reviews on games I've already played to see how well they match with critics. (They don't)

Reviews are pretty useful. Games that get consistent horrible reviews are almost always awful and games that get consistent amazing reviews are almost always at least good. For the ones in the middle or to figure out which well regarded games will be amazing for me versus just good, I have to consider what I like versus the tendencies of the reviewer and of course, reviewers will point out the strong and weak points of the game in their review. If the strong points of a game are "artistic graphics and humor" while the weak points are "poor controls and repetitive gameplay," I know I won't like it even if the critic thought the humor and artistic vision rescued the game and gave it a pretty good score.

I second the user scores too. If there is a big discrepancy between those and critic reviews, it's worth noting(unless the game in question is a Naruto game.)

I generally will search 2-4 reviews and come to a conclusion if I want to buy it from that, though theres alot of idiots doing reviews and complaining about "Oh it isn't anything like (insert generic game here) therefor, its bad" or the complete opposite, It will be too close to another game, therefor is just a bad copy of it

I agree with the person above, I generally look for multiple reviews (Especially after I wasted $60 on motherfucking Brink, now I don't just buy full-price games)