I don't think so. SONY didn't pay, but all reviews are full of crap like this:
"Visceral Games won't be winning any awards for originality with Dante's Inferno: it is essentially a multi-platform rendition of God of War, cut and shut with Christian religious mythology in place of the epic Olympian storylines found in the original Sony franchise"

Why all of them just look at Dante`s Inferno as a God of War ripoff and their reviews are full of comparisons of the two games. At the same time they criticize Dante`s Inferno cos it is to close to God of War and a few lines after why something was not like in God of War. Don't get me wrong. I don't think that EA deliver 100/100 game, but on the other side all this God of War critics obsession is just stupid.

"But you can't ignore the fact this is a God of War clone at its core, and many of the ideas here feel tired, familiar and dated."
WTF? Stop all shooters for this year quick! All of them are familiar and dated.

Mario Kart Wii is total crap! Want a good Mario Kart? Go play Mario Kart Double Dash. It was fun and innovative. Mario Kart Wii was filled with no new levels hardly and lacked the innovation and enjoymant of it's predecessor. New Super Mario Bros is ok. Personally the reviews were a bit high. At least it was enjoyable, unlike MK Wii.

I was about to respond to LordMatrix's post, but Rol beat me to it. I don't think MKWii or NSMB:Wii have bad reviews because someone paid for them to, they have bad reviews because they were reviewed by narrowminded tools

If you get caught bribing reviewers to give your game a good score, I don't think there's anything illegal about it. If you get caught bribing reviewers to give another game bad reviews, there would be blood spilt, and Sony would end up paying ludicous amounts in damages. No company would be that stupid. The game got bad reviews because it's not the sort of game that appeals to game reviewers

Exactly,why all the GOW comparison,when it`s not about GOW at all,it`s about Dante and his story.

Shooters are the same,but when you have a hack and slash game,the 100/100 game is GOW and I don`t know why,competition and diversity is good for the industry and consumers.

And many reviews are made by people who clearly don`t like action games,because i saw 95/100 reviews and 60/100 ones.

Somethings wrong here...

Sorry people... but Dante's Inferno is not a good or great game... this is a fact... for me it deserves a 7 score.

LOL..this thread is going to blow up!!!!

ACTUALLY even a greek site gave it a 7.0 and compared it to GoW and how awful rip-off it is then in the comments some people were really disturbed

Have you finished it? I have and I can judge by my self. Can you?

lol SONY is gonna pay money to not make people buy PS3 software.
nice logic there xD

Or maybe SONY is doing a double crossing thingy by paying reviews to rate Dante's Inferno low to discourage sales, but then they pay EA to have a limited edition to throw off the scent.  In actuality, GOW3 development is turning out real sour so we can expect low reviews for it.  But SONY intentionally paid reviews not only to lowly rate Dante's Inferno but to ALSO discredit those reviews because Dante's Inferno is such an uberawesomeradicalkickingawesome game to begin with.  So now GOW3 sales will be astronomical, and SONY will be laughing all the way to the bank with such a soon to be awful game by discrediting the reviewer and misleading the people by pretending thay are backing Dante's Inferno.

Brillant!!!