"I have much more of a problem with Chris Kohler of Wired giving it 6/10 because he was p-o-ed that single player battle mode is gone."

When was there a single player battle mode? Did I miss something?

And it does seem as though reviewers, and hardcore gamers, are just now discovering the series has a form of rubber band AI.

It was always "single player" battle mode, meaning you didn't have to have teams. He means free-for-all. Now, if you have 3 friends, 1 has to play with the computer. That's just stupid. Also, there is no 2-player Grand Prix, which makes unlocking everything boring as hell. They should have added 4-player Grand Prix. At least have an option for free-for-all battle mode.

Ugh. So many awesome tracks in this game, but they took away traditional multiplayer modes.

4/5 is very fair for this game, it's not exactly in the AAA league as say SMG, Brawl, CoD4 and GTA4, but it's still a fine effort by nintendo.

That's 8/10 for those who were having a bit of trouble, and around the 80%+ mark is what this games been getting, so I'd say it's fine the way it is (and they do bring up valid points).

Also, does anyone take Xplay seriously?

Nope.

If you think that's bad take this
http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchreview.asp?reviewid=935703
a 42/100 from some site called Game Chronicles.