Amen to that, Sqrl. I saw the OP say it was a horrible review and then read it... And ended up agreeing with most of what he had to say (though the audio part was stupid, buy some real speakers if you're trying to review HD games, asshat).

Then I looked at the score and shook my head... Utterly stupid. Mass Effect has its problems and it's a far from perfect game but I seriously question the motives of anyone who reviews it lower than 7.5 and even that score is a stretch. The game does so much right that you have to overlook a few of its glaring technical issues.

Though I should add that his most valid point is the fact that you can be a complete motherfucker in the game and still opt to be the nice guy at the end. Shame on you, Bioware. Shame shame shame. By that point, your galactic destiny should be decided. It completely invalides that Paragon/Renegade system you got players into during the first 20 hours. 

Sounds like a shit game.

After reading that review that is, 5.3 or whatever sounds fairly harsh though.

Easy there killer . I didn't say stop bitching, I just said those who are bitching should read the review because it does have legit points...once again...I agree the score is downright loony, but there is still merit in the content of the review.

A good writeup of a review will not generate as much hits as giving it a controversial score.

It has been mentioned but its so true. For the first hour and a half you just think to yourself I can't believe I bought this s**t. But after you expose Saren the game just became so good I couldn't believe it.

The biggest problem with gaming media is their insistance on having review scores that range from 7.5-10

I'm all for low scores, as long as the reviwer is as equally discerning to all the games they review. It's inconsistancy that makes a bad reviwer.

He has made some valid points, but they certainly don't justify the numeric score.. i guess this is just another case of outlining the importance of looking at the review content rather than the score

Sad.

But it doesn't matter. ME is the RPG GOTY for many people, and GOTY for myself. All I care about is that I feel it's quality is awesome.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, this guy obviously had a bad experience with the game or is biased, but again, free speech is everyone's right. Personally I thought Mass Effect was great, but lacked polish(the lag in texture loading was very frequent for me). 8.5-9/10 for me.

My only issue with these reviews are when they effect sites like game rankings. I so wanted Mario Galaxy to eclipse Ocarina of Time, but for one bad review, it put it into second place overall by 0.XX%