Well that's where you have to look at the fact that within the genre, the most important content, the content that will impact the score the most, is fighters.  Modes and lots of stages will earn you some bonus pooints but it's the fighter count that accounts for the lion's share of potential points.

Kinda on the fence with this one, which is a bit of a shame because it had the makings of a must buy a few months ago, sub-80 Meta kinda reaffirms some things to me. Had some fun with it as the Test Punch went on, but the gameplay feels a little thin if I'm honest. It mainly feels like waiting for your opponent to attack, dodge, and then try and grab/throw them until you win.

It's not so much the lack of characters, it's just the basic play mechanics feel thin to me and I'm not sure DLC or more characters really change that too much.

Maybe something I'll pick up later if they drop the price, I got enough to play on my Switch for the time being to make it through until Splatoon 2.

Based on what we know is coming out I think Splatoon 2, NBA2K18, and Mario Odyessy are going to be the retail games I buy from now until year end. I guess maybe Xenoblade 2, but I don't see that coming out this year and to be honest I didn't think Xenoblade X on Wii U was that great, so I might have to wait and see on that one too even if it is this year.

Will be getting some indie games like Sine Mora EX. 

Solid score so far to be honest.

Decent score, was lower than I initially predicted, but still not too surprising

Pretty unfair system then as it means the first game in a new Fighting series are automatically screwed out of high scores. They gotta create everything namely the gameplay from scratch, whereas long running series now have an already established framework to build off of. Of course we do know that ARMS is going to get more characters so it's score means nothing anyway. Judging by Splatoon it could be twice the amount we have currently, but I'll set my expectations on the low end and say 6 for a total of 16 which is fine for a first game especially given the further variety the ARMS provide.

Well yes the first game in a fighting series does have an uphill battle.  As does the first entry of any series in any genre.  And a reviewer cannot judge content that isn't there or just add points based on future characters.  They could be reskins for all they know.  

Like you said new Fighters are more screwed as they're expected to have as many characters as long running series. It's definitely easier for a brand new RPG or Platformer where you can't simplify the game down to how many characters it has.

I never said they could or should. A most ideal way would be to go back and update their reviews to accurately reflect the current state of the game, but they're not gonna do that, thus their reviews will become irrelevant.

that is very bad for nintendo