Point me to the parts of the OP that suggest I haven't played the game (besides the point about the career mode, I admit I haven't played that). I've played enough races to see the differences in the gameplay and mechanics of the two games.

I think Sony is the main culprit here. They hyped this game so much, that even being a great game, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Some things as the very low resolution alpha textures (water sparkles when raining) hinder greatly the general perception of the game, and people are much less forgiving with this problems due to Sony promises.

And when people bitch about inconsistencies, get real. Reviews are opinions by the reviewer, they are always subjective and prone to inconsistencies.

I can now see your point.....but we differ on what we define as unfair.

My point on all this is that you flip the release dates you flip the metas although not to the same value.....GT hype hurt in its meta(which I can also see as unfair, unnecessary nitpicking etc.) but it didnt hurt its meta nearly to the degree that FM3 did by raising the bar first.

Im really just using this as a means to procrastinate from studying for my engineering exam ....glad this didnt end up as what usually happens when we have a discussion

Actually my biggest one is right there in the first post of this wall of text........you should have judged the performance on your own merit not on "claims".That one sentence makes it seem like all you have done is played exhibition mode and online mode somewhat........but it does show that you havent played FM3 enough

I'm surprised Carl hasn't sued you yet.

OT:  The timing of the launch could affect, due to many games coming out and that may skew the score lower, just pointing out that little variable.

ahahaa

to be honest i got GT5 first day and have only played it twice, i didnt like it...

RUNS AWAY FAST

Point A: I can't blame them for being disappointed with the graphics; so was I. However, that shouldn't be held against the game. Measuring stick should be other games currently in the market, not what the game promised. By this line of thinking what would justify a perfect score in the graphics category? If meeting what was promised is all it takes then every game could have "perfect" graphics by not promising much.

Point B: I don't quite understand what you mean here by "most of hype boiled down to trailers and screenshots." Aren't those things all one has before a game actually is released? And from the screenshots I've seen (don't remember any trailers besides E3 gameplay) the game did deliver, as the graphics in photo mode are just as good as that.

Point C: I think this is a little more than an opinion. What is the entire purpose of the score system? Isn't it to give a rough idea on how games compare to each other? So if FM3 and GT5 are both racing sims, a higher score for FM3 should, ideally, mean that FM3 is the better racing sim, which I believe is not true.

Last point: so why didn't hype play a role in the rating process of Halo 3, while it did for GT5?

I did judge the performance on my own merit; my conclusion was that both games run sufficiently smoothly. The "claim" was there just to show the reader that some people believe that GT5 does not run as smoothly as Forza.

And you keep coming back to this, what would you consider enough playtime? I haven't played career, where the bulk of the offline gameplay lies, and I never judged the game for that. I have raced in the game quite a bit, so I believe I have sufficient experience with the game to make a comparison about the gameplay, which is what I did.

Pretty much this, which shouldn't be a part of a reviewer's mindset....but pretty much this.

I was just waiting for him to be banned for being an evil troll of Sony.