I have this article here from IGN below check it out.

http://au.ps3.ign.com/articles/866/866285p1.html

So there you have it, positive review scores don't necessarily mean that your game is going to vault up the sales charts. Only Call of Duty 4, Halo 3 and Super Mario Galaxy appear on both lists and it's probably no coincidence that those three titles were some of the most hyped releases of 2007. Now let's take a look and see if the opposite is true. Do poor reviews mean a game will be sitting on the shelves? Here we're taking the bottom ten games on the Top 100 sales chart to see how they stack up with the average review score.

 BTW: What Average Review Score do you consider to be the bear minimum you would allow for a game? What is the most credible Review source on the net?

Top Reviewed Game: Super Mario Galaxy only 9th is Sales.
Top sales game: Call of Duty 4 is only 4th place in reviews.

Good reviews: Not necessarily.
Highly publicized reviews: Yes, just look at Kane & Lynch.

I guess it's true that all publicity is good publicity. That's why B-list celebrities are always in "leaked" sex tapes.

This is why marketing gets payed the second most in the video game industry :). To be fair in general great reviews lead to great sales though there are exceptions usually due to the game being so unique etc it just didn't have the mass appeal.

Hype and marketing would play key factors in driving up sales of a game. I wonder if that many kids parents look at reviews of games on the net? If a kid wants such and such game because it looks cool then the parents will buy them the game for the kids birthday or Xmas.

Well, I tend to look at reviews and user reviews for games I BUY.

They validate your purchase. I used to buy old games, play them, and THEN scour my magazine collection for the review. Many times, I'd enjoy a game, and read a review telling me that I was wrong. I WASN'T having fun! I was lying to myself!

People already have an idea of what they want to buy. Good reviews for games like Prince of Persia and Beyond Good and Evil had virtually no effect on sales. Bad reviews on games like Devil May Cry 2 and Carnival Games had no effect either.

I already know that I will buy the next WWE, Dragon Ball Z, and Street Fighter, no matter what the reviewers say. Familiarity goes much further in the eyes of Joe Public than reviews ever will. $60 for a game is a much bigger investment than $10 for a movie. I disagree with a movie reviewer, I waste enough money for a Mcdonald's meal. I disagree with a game's review, I just blew an electric bill.

I think they influence sales but do not determine sales. They are one of many factors such as price and brand.

For upmarket customers, reviews kinda matter. There are games we're gonna buy no matter what reviews say. There are games we'll probably buy unless a terrible review emerges. Then there are games that are highly reviewed but we arbitrarily dismiss.

For mainstream customers, not at all. Recommendations from friends is by far a better indicator than a review in a magazine or website designed for upmarket customers.

Wii Play got trashed by reviews and it sells by the truckload. Carnival Games has sold a lot, and that got trashed even more.

Of that top 10 reviewed games list of 2007. I would say that Bioshock was a really boring game to play and it was far too easy and it had no online. i personally did not like Bioshock at all. Bioshock was ranked third in reviews for 2007 and only ranked 29th in sales, I think it only sold like 1.5 million or something.