So true. You would think reviewers would mention that in their review they onl;y played against devs. It kind of slants the experience they may get. I doubt the devs will use all the sheisty tactics that normal online players will and thus miss out on some of the downsides. I usually dont read reviews any ways. I either rent/demo/or read forum feedback.

I found this article pretty interesting.  I especially like the part where it explains how the developers don't "curb stomp" the reviewer.

maybe press vs press. Days ago the official release the servers secretly open to play journalists from ign vs journalists from gamespot vs eurogamer vs 1up vs cvg vs gametrailers etc.

With so many journalists from sites and magazines, easily we have a number of 500 people to play each other deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag etc.

Hey at least they play it.

I was always thinking they only check if all payments for advertising are allready in their bank account ;)

Not all. OPM UK review the offline portion of games in their main review, then review the online portion the month after so that they get to play with real people

I've wondered this before, especially with games that Online is the real selling point. When they say things like, "no lag" "really easy to set up and play a game" "balanced multiplayer" are all those things true because the game was well built or because they are playing on a special server, with the devs? How much different is it when you are playing on crammed servers vs. every 14 year old on launch day?  Very interesting article.

the press doesnt know how to review mp games. they barely know how to review sp games.