For what it's worth, the Wii version got an 8.8, and is supposedly by far the best version.

Again, I don't see what the big deal is. Every FPS is essentially a ripoff of some other FPS, but I don't hear people whining about that all the time. The same can be said of most other game genres.

I don't remember this amount of bitching when Blizzard launched WoW, even though it was just using ideas from other games.

Perhaps review scores are over-inflated, but randomly marking some games harshly and other generously isn't going to address that problem. It's just going to confuse people who are looking for useful information while making reviews look unprofessional and inconsistant.

Well yea but they have to start sometime.  If they feel the game deserves a 7.9, but because of all the hype, advertising pay, ect that have swayed them unconsciously to score it like a 9.  What do they do when they realize it.  Do they give ths game a 8.7 or something and then the next time reviewing a good game they think is an 8, they give it a 8.4 and so on until they slowly bring down their review scores to what they believe they should be.

Or should they just start rating the correct way and just let people bitch for awhile until it blows away and you have a good review system.

The way reviewing is now is if it ain't a 9+ then it's  a shitty game, and thought of as a flop.  I personally think 7's should be thought of as a good review.

Let me put it another way, it is intellectually dishonest to apply a harsher review standard to GH:WT than the standard which was applied to Rock Band 2, it's primary competitor, only a few weeks ago. If this is really what IGN is doing (I doubt it), then they create the appearance of bias and throw all their other reviews into question. Is the next game which gets a 7 getting it under the old standard or the new one? Does that make it a better game than the 8 which came out six months ago or a worse one?

Either they clarify these questions, or their reviews really don't have any meaning.