How much weight do reviews have on your purchasing decision?

[Alphachris]

I used to like Videogame Magazines. I grew up with the good old NES ( I just bought the remastered Duck Tales and it brought back good memories. Great Game!) and I always bought Magazines up to the PS2 era. Even now I buy a magazine from time to time.

But with the coming of the internet my interest in reviews was fading. After buying some highly rated "Western Games" like Oblivion or Dragon Age that I simply did not like a single bit I started to question the review system. The internet gives me access to reviews for free... But most of them are useless. It is not possible to rate a game with a number... And I highly doubt that an online magazine can really be independant when it is dependant on advertising revenue.

I have my own special tastes and they are simply not represented in most review systems:
Offline Coop is more important than online coop for me.
Online multiplayer is not a plus for me... it is NOT adding replay value to me. It only adds "repetition value". And if stupid online multiplayer trophies are added the online mode is a big letdown.
Non-linearity and Decision making are not that important to me... they can even lead to extremely boring games with no depth at all.
A game can be great despite only lasting 10 hours. In fact most games that last for 30+ hours are simply getting boring because you are doing always the same things.

So all in all, Reviews do not matter any longer for me. There are games with a reviewscore of 60% that I have enjoyed much more than games like Oblivion or Dragon Age. Even a game like "The last of us" can be boring to you if you do not enjoy post-apocalyptic worlds, no matter how good the reviews are.