so true.  sometime I use review if I can't decide between games.  With some games are so expensive, does not hurt to just check out the review first.

You'd probably be surprised who reads these sites ...

Even though my sister has been playing videogames since we got the Colecovision in the early 80s, since she primarily played handheld games after the SNES because she didn’t like the kinds of games that were mostly on consoles (with the exception of social games like Mario Kart and what not) she would be considered a "Casual" gamer by today’s standards. While she couldn’t care less about Grand Theft Auto, Halo or God of War, she is very well versed in the games she is interested in; and she does read many of the popular websites to find out information about games she is interested in.

There has been evidence since the Gameboy Color was in its prime that women gamers was a growing demographic that was becoming more and more important, but rather than trying to understand them most developers and reviewers treated them as second class citizens. The unfortunate side effect of this is that many of them have become so accustomed to low scores that they mostly ignore them and read the review instead; which does make the score meaningless for them.

Low scores are not due to being casual, this is getting annoying, it's due to being crappy. Tons of core and hardcore games get bad scores too. The PSP got 2 games over 90 IN FIVE YEARS, not because it's casual focus but the games are either bad or subpar. Reviews are not created to please demographics, they are give an idea of quality, gameplay and value. While casual games might be fun, fun is not equal to good. People have fun drinking, but it's not always a good thing.

And the minute, companies invest into these games and create good games that are still fun, then they will get a good score. I have enjoyed many bad movies, that doesnt mean they should have been rated higher.

Reviews = opinions. Opinions are not facts. Every person has a different opinion. You can have an opinion on everything but know absolutely nothing.
Reviews = Opinions = Blah ,blah, blah.

I think we’re talking about two entirely different things here ...

There has been a massive bias in the industry against simple, arcade style, videogames; and most reviewers see these games as outdated throwbacks to a more primitive time in videogame development. Many people do not share this view, and a lot of people would prefer a simple game done well (like Bejewelled) to a much more complicated gaming experience. While there are the occasional game like this that reviews well, most of these games aren’t reviewed and the reviews they do get seem to be marked lower because they do not meet the reviewers idea of what a videogame should be.

As a result of this, there are many of these games that are highly addictive fun games that (with the variety of game-play modes) have a ton of replay value that get low scores. At the same time, there are a lot of similar games that are dull, uninspired and repetitive with limited replay value that get similar scores. By not considering what a game is when reviewing it, the review scores become meaningless.

The best analogy I can think of is imagine if the aggregate review scores of Killzone 2 and Haze were similar because there were only a handful of reviewers who played the game and most of them thought that First Person Shooters were the lowest form of videogame and gave them a low score on principle.

This is the problem for me. Reviews should NOT be just opinions. If I wanted an opinion, then I'll ask my brother, friends or any person that knows my tastes. Reviews should be Professional opinions. The reviewer should give scores, not depending if he liked the game or not, but if he thinks the game is quality and will be appreciated by the target audience.

Say I'm a reviewer and hate FPS, I would not give CoD a 5 or something because I didn't like it, and things like that are happening with a lot of games, specially for Wii, because of the "casual" and "waggleee" stuff reviewers complain.

That's why for me, many reviews are irrelevant when the author gives high scores depending of the "production values" and incredible graphics, but other games with simpler designs give me more fun.

give me some exemples of those great simple arcade style video games the industry is bias against.

Now let me see the games I own on the PSP i THINK got good reviews are somehow casual.

Lumines

Wipeout

little big planet

loco roco

pixeljunk

Patapon

There ARE casuals reviewers for casual games with their own casual gaming sites.

They're already here, and they're growing. "Casuals" don't come to hardcore 1337 gaming websites that are full of pictures of girls in bikinis. They get their reviews at crazy places like amazon.com or yahoo! answers, really the weirdest of places. But there are also reviewers with their own YouTube channels. They have kids and wives and they review games for the sole purpose of playing with their kids and/or with their wives.

You guys just don't know where to look because you're too hardcore. Give yourself a pat on the back I guess?

Most reviewers do not even finish the whole games. They may play a demo or a few hours of the game and then just give a score and make some comments here and there. The game reviews do not sound professional at all.

The comments in the reviews often do not correlate with the final review scores. The high review scores have been rigged for some games. Could it be bribes from game developers/publishers.

and...you just came to this conclusion? I thought this had been known for some time. 

And this does not mean reviews are irrelevant.