Most sites do not release bad scores on any game until after it ships. It is not just EA and Microsoft... Kengo: Legend of the Nine, Fatal Intertia, and Dynasty Warriors are just a few recently released games that don't have many actual reviews right now... This is because they have average or below average scores and the sites find this the best way to release bad scores without tanking sales. For the most, part you don't see the negative reviews until a week after launch. It is not a conspiracy... It is the way the industry works.
And by the way, if you put out a game and a review site gave it low scores, would you continue to advertise (send checks) to that site? Wow, they gave us a 6/10 on Halo 3, let's advertise Mass Effect on their site, hopefully it will do better...
You're explaining exactly why the system is broken. It isn't the job of reviewers to stop "tanking sales." It's their job to objectively tell people what is worth their money. If a game sucks, they're supposed to WANT it to tank saleswise. Advising people to avoid bad games and buy good ones is supposed to be how they create value with readers, who are supposed to be their customers.
Readers aren't the customers, though. They're the product. Gaming publications produce excited fans, who they deliver to the games companies that pay them. Looking at things like the 1Up review, I'm convinced Halo is the best example of this.
Of the campaign and versus multi:
No surprise
So depending on your mood, campaign mode either delivers what's expected or delivers that very well, but anyone would be hard pressed to call it mind-blowing. The same goes for versus multiplayer. Like campaign mode, it's also really refined and built very well from top to bottom, but it doesn't hold any big surprises for fans of the last two titles
And of the co-op?
The only drawback is every co-op game we've played over Xbox Live, whether it's two, three, or four players, has been fairly-to-incredibly laggy.
Maybe if they just faulted one of these portions of the game, a perfect score would make sense. But they faulted the campaign, the versus AND the co-op, and gave the game a perfect score. Huh?
"[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.
