The problem with this review is that it flies in the face of pretty much every preview/impressions I have read. This will most certainly be an outlier that will make most people ask: "Wtf?"

While I'll try not to argue against this review until I've played the game for myself (for an extended period of time... unlike the measly three minutes I got to spend with it at the Eurogamer Expo. After a two hour wait in line as well <_<). I stopped reading Gamespot's reviews last year. There where several where they made false comments, with the final straw being the Super Mario 3D Land review when they claimed that Nintendo hadn't tried to capitalise on the 3D effect.

I guess people don't give a shit about Gamespot here in Germany ;P

Doesn't Nintendo already have several franchises with more appeal than Halo or Assassin's Creed? Uncharted, definitely.

Also, Retro hasn't stopped complimenting Nintendo's line up. DKCR was one of the most crushingly difficult platformers in recent memory - a perfect antithesis to, say, Kirby's Epic Yarn. It absolutely belongs in the celestial pantheon of hardcore games.

My lord, I don't understand the appeal of Resident Evil (the newer ones, at least). Uncharted and Assassin's Creed, sure. Even so, Nintendo already has games in the action/adventure genre, though Zelda and Metroid lean towards a more puristic approach.

where does this grade mentality come from? is that a US scale?

For example in AUS

The point I am making every scale is different in every country.

Websites that use the 10 point scales shoudl define what each of their grades mean, if they going to stick to that scale system.

I agree they shoudl use their money to buy out studios or create new ones to develope games jsut for them. I htink they are some what trying this already, with Bayonetta 2 and even NG3.

I agree about the standards need to be lifed, but there is a fine line with that, as Nintendo tried this already with N64 and GCN. Guess where the 3rd party went? to to PS1?

The only eased of during Wii days to try and win back 3rd party support. But that just resulted in shovelware.

I also think they have stepped up a bit on WiiU. Tekken 2 developers wanted to dumb it down for Wii and Nintendo told them no we want the full game.

Many websites do, here's Gamespot's in fact: http://www.gamespot.com/misc/reviewguidelines.html
(But I'm still not convinced of the integrity of Gamespot reviews.)

Here are some other ones for comparison:

http://www.polygon.com/pages/about-reviews
"Games are not scored until a review is written and finalized. Once a review is complete, the reviewer meets with a group of senior editors to determine which score on our scale properly reflects the text as written. We do not write with scores in mind."

http://www.destructoid.com/the-official-destructoid-review-guide-2011-203909.phtml
Destructoid's is actually fascinating to read through because they address how negative reviews don't generate more hits for them, and they address how they don't care whether or not their advertisers pull out depending on the review scores. 

I guess it's because I allow myself to be. I go in wanting to be scared, because sometimes it's as enjoyable as being amused by a funny game or fortified by a great action game. The point of art, I think, is to transport you from reality to some other place for a while. So we, as the audience, need to participate in the process to make it work. We need to believe it. Otherwise we're just looking at words on a page, celluloid in a reel, or computer graphics on a television screen.

In terms of IPs they have to offer to "hardcore" PS360 gamers, I wouldn't say they have (and all 4 titles originally mentioned could be put in that group). That's why I said it would be nice to see some 2nd party developer do it for them, I just made a big lapsus linguae and put Retro instead of Rare.

Better. Now I must wonder about the wisdom of agressively going after the gun simulator crowd (360 gamers) and the interactive movie crowd (PS3 gamers).

Okay, no more joking. You put quotation marks around "hardcore", so I feel compelled to take you more seriously. Now, Retro Studios would be a fine candidate for making games for people who don't normally like games Nintendo, but they've positioned themselves as a developer existing only to please Nintendo diehards. The solution might be to buy some talented studios... or do what Microsoft and Sony has done - cultivate partnerships with third-parties. It's something Nintendo has been doing more of lately, and it's a trend that needs to continue. Every deal is a blow to a competition, and a potential wave of "hardcore" cash. I don't think there's anything Nintendo can do to become the patron saint of dedicated gamerdom at this point, but chipping away at the issue is better than avoiding it.