Still better than "Reviewers not being able to beat the game first stage on EASY: God Hand - Enter the bashing".

Like I said I played on hard all the way through. When I died there were times when it said you can change the difficulty setting.

BUT MOST GAMES don't allow you to go harder once you go easier - this prevents people from completing on hard by cheating. It's totally fair.

I don't know why you want to fault the developers. OBVIOUSLY a lot of people who buy South Park will be casual(ish) gamers, and for most of them a turned based game is completely new. For ANYONE who has gaming experience, it would be obvious that the only mode worth playing is hard - especially if you pay full price. Reviewers are meant to provide these kind of insights. But many of them just end up paraphrasing each other and not adding much new.

I'm not looking for an excuse to fault the developers. But if I'm reviewing a game, and it offers me those difficulty settings, I'm choosing the middle one. If "normal" is braindead-easy, the developers messed up. Even as an experienced gamer, I rarely choose "hard" on my first playthrough. This is because I expect that "normal" mode, being named such, is the difficulty setting that the game's difficulty curve was balanced around. Often I find that "hard mode" implements tricks to give the illusion of challenge. This isn't always the case, of course. But if the game is balanced around hard mode and normal mode is too easy, why does easy mode exist? What is its purpose?

In short, why would I blame the reviewer for playing on normal mode and saying it's too easy when I myself would most likely choose normal mode and expect a fair challenge?

Where is the punchline?

In short, why would I blame the reviewer for playing on normal mode and saying it's too easy when I myself would most likely choose normal mode and expect a fair challenge?

it sounds to me like you're arguing for the sake of arguing. THEY SHOULD INDICATE WHAT DIFFICULTY THEY PLAY ON - that's all. Geez didn't you get that the first time? If you understood the OP you would have gathered that my frustration lies in the fact that these people who are reviewing the game didn't play it the way any serious gamer would, AND when they did so they didn't even indicate that.

Even as an experienced gamer, I rarely choose "hard" on my first playthrough

Evidently 'experience' doesn't equals skill. If you thought about it a little bit you would realize that the majority of people who play games suck at it - hence "normal" is actually easy. "Easy" is for people that have no coordination, skill and strategy and just want to finish the game. Hard is for those that have actually learnt to be better at games after 15 years (or whatever). 

It's a tv-cartoon videogame tie-in with millions of fans. OBVIOUSLY it's not Skyrim or Fallout. If you didn't play it on hard you have no right to say it's too easy - end of story.

Not everyone is thinking of gaming as some sort of sports. I am playing video games mainly because of its story (like JRPGS) or interesting settings (like AC2 letting you enjoy Renaissance Italy). Difficulty is among the least important factors in my opinion.

I always start with the "normal" difficulty as it seems to be the right choice. If there is a trophy for beating a game on the hardest difficulty level I play it and normally I can beat it... but I don't like to replay a game on various difficulty levels. I prefer 1 long playthrough where you can gain 100%.

And to be honest, I don't get excited if I beat a game on the hardest mode. So if I play normal it is not because I lack coordination, skill or strategy... it is just that difficulty is not important to me and I go with the standard setting.

Take Demon's Souls. It is a game that is famous for its difficulty level, but on the storytelling side this game was really lacking... Most of the time I was running around questioning what this whole game is about. I managed to get the Platinum trophy, but I did not like the game. There was nothing there to get me interesting in replaying the game.

Final Fantasy XIII was not a difficult game, but there was so much effort put into story, characters and world that I want to replay the game.

ff 13 was ez as hell! secondly ff story was the worst i have ever seen in my life that game was dull

First playthrough for me is always normal. If the devs have done their job properly, that should be the tightest way to play. Sometimes if I loved the game, I'll replay on hard, but very rarely.

Reviewers should state which difficulty they played through on. And in the case of games like Wonderful 101 where they marked a game down for being too hard, they should say what the other difficulties are like (or better yet, give the game to someone who can actually play games).

They should also state if they completed the game at all and if not, how much time the spent.

Some games are 'hard' when on 'normal' mode and reviewers complain the game is 'too hard' when in reality they are missing wonderful intricacies of the control/combo system.  The Wonderful 101 was one such victim.

Agreed, sometimes hard modes are just stupid. COD WAW on veteran anyone? Also Mass Effect on insane is really stupid. Four headshots to kill someone? That is just ridiculous