surely the three eurogamer reviews should count as one lol, they are being very harsh right now, i played on the beta and it was totally awesome, the only fault it really had was loading times, so 9/10 for me

I just love this:

"When it comes to the core gameplay, however, there's no question: it's the best in its class, dethroning Mario Kart in every technical way." - Gamervision

"As a kart game is derivative and not as good as the king of the genre (Mario Kart), but its creative tools are what shine in this interesting package." - Eurogamer Spain

Guess oppinions differ... I'm personally not hyped for this game at all. During the beta, I had real problems with the incredibly slow loading times and framerate/screen tearing during gameplay (felt choppy). Also I'm not going to spend my time creating stuff, I want to come and play right away, I have enough of creative block along my line of work.

Not present in the full game (load times are still there, but not as bad as in the beta)

About the karting: I've let several Mario Kart players play it so far, and they won't return to MK now :p

Fair enough, neither am I probably.

But I'm betting plenty of other people will spend time creating stuff, some of it even good stuff. And playing stuff others have created will mean hours of fun. My kids and their friends have had a few goes at making levels for LBP, but their real enjoyment comes from playing levels others have created and I can't count the number of hours they've spent playing community levels on lbp. I'm expecting the same sort of thing with MNR.

Honestly I don't understand the "long loading times is a deal breaker" attitude. I can't believe it's the only, or even the main reason for not wanting the game. There's got to be something more fundamental than that.

Well the load times are deal breaker once you've experienced them, I don't know if you've spent any time with the beta, but waiting for anything to load up was taking up to one minute, and that's for everything. Go to creator mode to select cart > 30 sec > select cart and exit mode > 30 sec > select track and load > 1 min... etc. Was really frustrating, but maybe they've improved that, I don't know.

I have no problem with the create/share philosophy, I think that it's excellent way to keep the game alive, create community, keep strong legs, start a franchise, promote different approach etc. I've also liked these user created levels in LPB, I've played more of those than the story ones. Just that this usually comes with a trade off, some game mechanics usually suffer because of that option which allows users to create their own "thing". I'll wait and see, I might pick this up eventually, but Kart racers aren't in general my thing.

Ahhh, now we get to the heart of the matter.

How justified is it to base a buying decision on something like load times experienced on the beta? I mean essential gameplay mechanics and other elements that cannot really change between beta and final version are fine to make buying decisions on. But load times between beta and finished product can be significantly altered. It seems load times are still noteworthy in the final product, but by the sound of the reviews their not so bad as to significantly diminish the overall experience; unless you're Eurogamer, and even then they gave it a 7.

Compare that to PS3 Bayonetta reviewers who thought load times had a material effect on the game. Those reviews came in at sub 7.

There's about 3-4 90's which haven't been added to the Metascore.

Eurogamer are a joke. 3 independant reviews which conclude a 7 score? they're clearly coordinated, and shouldn't have separate entries on Metacritic.

Loading a track in the beta was a 2-3 minute afair. It's now down to 30-50 seconds according to information provided by the reviewers on metacritic. So I think you've got your facts a little wrong. 

You can see this in the destructoid hands on preview of the beta, one of the loading screens consumes 2-3 minutes of the 30minute video. 

God than it's even worse, I've said >1 min from personal experience, because it felt long, no idea it was that long. Well 30-50 seconds is still a lot, way more than what I'd like to see. And it can be dealbreaker for someone... like me. Waiting 1 minute to play 5 minute race to wait 1 minute... If the load / play ratio is even 1:10 it's still pretty bad (for me).

Yep that's fair enough, I understand why for a minority it could be a deal breaker. Personally it doesn't bother me too much, and I understand why a game like MNR has to have longer load times.

It loads a whole load of assets, compared to other racers which are typically relatively bland loading and mapping the same low resolution textures over and over. MNR is certainly the best looking kart racer on the market so it's pretty understandable, yet still I understand why that might not be what some people are looking for from a Kart Racer.

Personally, I have a few other racers such as Pure which suffer from the same kind of loading times, or Killzone which leaves me waiting ~3minutes just to play a map on multiplayer. So I'm not too bothered.