I usually have a couple of sites or reviewers who I have observed to have similar preferences to me and therefore I know that their views on a game will be similar to what mine is likely to be. I don't really read lots of reviews though because you can really get a pretty good impression based on a handful of reviews.
These days I also tend to look at videos more often than simply reading articles. Gametrailers gets a lot of action from me and has been a huge help. Obviously you cannot work out from these whether the gameplay is solid but you can see whether its the sort of game you would enjoy.
Sometimes it doesn't matter what the reviews say because there are genres I simply do not enjoy. If a "mini-game" collection was given scores above 90% across the board it wouldn't influence me to buy the game for example.
Ultimately information is good and gamers should become informed before making decisions. At the same time though there are other factors which gamers should take into account before making gaming decisions (such as personal preferences for example).
