I've read about three reviews for the Wii U and so far the big negative appears to be battery life. Sounds like it can be a real annoyance unless you have an outlet nearby. Kind of lame but I doubt it will be a deal-breaker for anyone. The second negative seems to be how slow the UI is. Perhaps that will be improved over time. There is also some trepidation over the online functionality, but that whole deal arrived very late and most reviewers only had a few hours with it.

Other than that, the system seems solid. Pretty much everyone agrees that the GamePad has major potential to enhance games and is really nice for controlling your television experience. As with every other system, it's going to come down to the software.

It's ok Wii U fans, don't rabidly bash reviews that disagree with you. Most of his complaints are mirrored in other reviews I found on youtube anyway.

That said the real complaints all lie with the gamepad. Make a good third party one and the system can bump up to a 9.5

Well, I found this part discussing the location of the A button painfully ignorant:

"On Xbox, PlayStation, and most other recent consoles, the most commonly-used button (both in games and for advancing and selecting in menus) is on the bottom of the diamond. On the Wii U, it's the A button, and it sits on the right side — in dozens of hours of playing I never got used to that, and never stopped pressing B when I was trying to press A.  [...] If you've ever played video games before, on any console, the Wii U's going to be frustrating to use for a while."

Sure on any console... except SNES, DS, 3DS, Wii Classic Controller, or every console in Japan (if the right side is all we're counting, then throw in NES, GB, GBA, etc.)   From the comments, it seems this paragraph used to be much worse in the original version, and obviously he neglected to fix the last sentence.

I really expected higher standards from the Verge.

Yes exactly; anyone who's played a Nintendo console before (or even the Classic Controller) should know what to expect with the button placement. It's a non-issue.

Best button placement, amirite?

I've never tried to play an fps with a gamecube controller, but it was wonderfully intuitive to have your face buttons as different shapes. The reason why f and j on your keyboard have little bumps, etcetc

cheap build quality? more like Amazing build quality!
seriously, the weight of the gamepad with all those features is unbelievable. How do they make it so light? everything works great, and the screen is extremely responsive and beautiful. it is anything but cheap.

A red bar in the heat/noise category? Funny

blackstarr said: Best button placement, amirite? I've never tried to play an fps with a gamecube controller, but it was wonderfully intuitive to have your face buttons as different shapes. The reason why f and j on your keyboard have little bumps, etcetc

Best controller I've ever used! :)

OT: Good read, and has pictures!

@non-gravity Red is good

3 points for lacking

Galaki said: 3 points for lacking

I saw that joke in the youtube comments of the video in the wee hours of the morning.

So that's were you get your 'jokes' from... youtube comments.