You think the Destiny review thing was a concerted effort to trick people? It's my assumption that 100% online games usually don't have before release reviews, and even if they did that wouldn't be a good assessment of the game's quality because it would be under ideal conditions with a tiny number of people playing so networking issues wouldn't show their heads. To me seeing that Destiny wasn't doing before release reviews hinted to me that Bungie was confident of their net code, but you may be right that they weren't confident of their overall product.

Funnily enough, Jim Sterling just posted a Jimquisition on the issue of Review Embargoes.

I think 'deliberate attempt to trick people' is a bit strong strong. Forza, and other online games, have found ways to provide reviewers with an experience in advance of the release date. If there wasn't some element of damage control going on, why bother to send out early copies (which couldn't actually be used) at all?

In the case of Destiny, we're hardly left with a bad game, but surely Bungie and Activision were wise to the fact it wasn't going to be the game-changer (LOL) that they'd been promising. Ultimately if you trust people enough to send them early reviews, you should trust them enough to be able to know they're playing with a community of 200, where everyone else will be playing with 200k! And in this instance, Microsoft has arranged for everyone to be online at pre-determined times, offering a mitigation, if not a solution, to the issue.

But the whole thing is particularly vexing when you offer pre-order exclusives. I would have less of an issue with embargoes if it were still possible to walk to the store and get the full game for the same price 2 days after release. Outside of Destiny it is also often moot. The embargo ends on the day of release, but often reviewers have had the game for a week. Its not like they'll actually take advantage of the community and wait to complete their review (though here you could argue thats an issue with reviewers).