If cutscenes weren't inordinately long, there wouldn't have been a certain amount of 'touching up' of reviews about them, would there?

That said, I'll be getting this once I beat the first three, which I just bought.

OH MY GOD the debates rage on.

If it doesnt have 90 minute cutscenes, its okay.

AND IF IT DOES

You can skip them!

So much fuss over something so trivial

I guess Gamepro was wrong. This story is weeks old and the Edge review came out days ago confirming pretty much the same.

"I don't recall..." 

Wow, it seems no-one can read

The original announcement by the designers was something along the lines of

"there are 90 minutes of cutscenes in the game"

90 minutes TOTAL

Yes, and after this post there were several reviewers that confirmed that there were two cut scenes about 90 minutes each.

Scottie: no, about 1/2 of the game is cut scenes and this has been stated in several reviews. While reviewers are not allowed to talk about total length of cut scenes (Konami won't allow it) some estimates put it around 9 hours of cut scene.

Look, I know it sucks and I know that even MGS fans don't want it to be true, but there are most likely actually two cut scenes approaching 90 minutes.  Several reviewers have stated that. 

So if we mixed this, with the following excerpt from IGN UK Review:

One of those things that Konami doesn't want us to talk about is the 'total length of cut-scenes'. Hopefully it won't be bending the rules to far to reveal that they represent about half of the content of the game. That, for some people, will be too much to bear. But in many ways it's a vindication of Kojima's unique interpretation of the videogame medium.

We'll get a game that's 3 hours long... how fun.

I think a lot of people are just hoping there are 90 minutes of total cut scenes rather than ~9 hours, or whatever there actually are. The cut scenes are like watching a bad B-movie, and if they're 90 minutes it will be like watching a long, bad B-movie.

No one wants the cut scenes to be this long.  Most are hoping it's not true.  It's a good idea for Konami to hide the length of cut scenes from the public, though, because it would negatively impact sales (they know this, which is why they're hiding it). 

Well, I, and many other MGS fans, do like these scenes. They are not like watching a bad B-Movie... they are fun, IMHO.

However, you do have a point that the general public may find the long cutscenes a bit.... tedious. Then again, MGS4 is a game for the fans so I don't expect it to have a wide appeal.

If the cut-scenes are like watching a bad B-movie, chances are you don't care about the plot or story anyway and don't mind skipping them right? Fans of the series will love the cut-scenes, and people who don't like the story can skip them, we all win lol.