Everyone in the world knew that Halo 3 was going to get insanely good scores including a ton of perfect scores years ago. It was basically confirmed in 2004 when the Halo 2 launch went off without a hitch. And if anyone had any doubt, it should have been erased weeks ago when Halo 3 ads started covering every major game publication from top to bottom. Videogame journalism is shady.
That isn't to insult Bungie, the Halo games or most of these reviewers. Just Microsoft, who is signing these publications' checks. They obviously can't directly dictate what scores should be given, but they can and do, according to ceaseless industry rumor, restrict scores below a certain level (I'm guessing 9.5 in this case; it was 9.0 for the recent Madden launch) until after the game launches.
Don't shoot the messenger.
"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.
