Coming from EA (aka the worst company in video games) yes, this is a bad sign.

As a PS4 person, I played Titanfall on the PC, and I thought it was pretty good. Although many people bash xbox1 graphics, this game is still gonna be fun because it's quick twitch FPS and smooth 60 fps (regardless whether this game is 792p or lower). From the beta experience, I'm sure the biggest complaint will be the bots (which I hated) but I don't expect the metacritic scores to be lower than 85. Also, I don't see the embargo is a big deal because this is an online only game, and I don't see how a reviewer can review this game until the game is released.

It's not a day 1 purchase for me, and I'll wait until a price drop (hopefully in few months) on PC (unless this game is announced for a later date for PS4!!!)

Normally an embargo is not a good sign, I don't think I've ever seen a game scoring in the 90s having an embargo on reviews.

hahahahaha. They might have!

There is zero chance a multi-player only game is getting a 90+ metascore, especially not one like Titanfall that will get a tonne of clickbait low scores!

so when does the embargo lift?

Most likely it's because the game has some bugs or balance issues. They don't want reviewers to play it until the day 1 patch is out.

The reviews are probably written already, they just don't release till 9pm PT.

Well, if that's true, that's not a good sign.  They lack confidence in their game.

Whilst I don't think it is necessarily a bad sign, I also don't think it is a very good sign. So far Titanfall has been hyped beyond any reasonable expectation, so much so that the hype must be reaching the average Joe gamer. I believe the reviews will be mostly positive, but they will also firmly plant people's feet on the ground regarding the game. It is a new IP, it is cross-generation, it is online-only, and it is published by EA. This means that it will not be as good as it could be as that usually comes with fan feedback and the second iteration, it will not be very pretty (which could perhaps the only valid reason to get it on the Xbox One rather than the Xbox 360), it has a limited audience, and there will be issues with the servers.

In short, Titanfall will review very well, but it will only review as well as it can do being what it is, and that score will be far lower than those who are hyping the game believe it will be.