A singular review is not a meta-analysis.  It doesn't need to be either.  Everyone could score on a 10 or 5 point scale, then the reviews would be averaged to come up with a score to as many decimal places as you want.

The letter grades are only better than the 100% system in this case BECAUSE they are less "accurate" (note... you cannot be accurate in scoring a game, this is not maths)

Ignoring this fact,... the letter grades are no different.

There should not be a score that can be easily equated to a number scheme because that is what has been causing "score inflation" and discourages people from reading the content of th review, and the only purpose of a grade/score should be to help pull you in to read the review.

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I feel I put my best argument against this with my posts in this thread:
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=50667

And this statement by Khuutra is pretty good too
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?id=1457111

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A "grade/score" at the end of a review should not be used to compare the said game to others, because that discourages people to read the review, instead relying on the score to assume the game must be amazing/awful.

A smaller scale like with 5 points or less encourages you to read the review, because you may have been on the fence about whether you wish to buy a game, and if it gets a 4 you would then check the review to see what good/bad things in the game the reviewer found and whether you can tolerate any problems.

Wow--now we're going to get into the 'X game is three percent better than Y game!' arguments again.

That is exactly why I don't want our reviews on a 100 point scale.

Does it matter that a 5-point system is generally equated with something approaching journalistic integrity? At least, it's used for every other medium, and exists in contrast to the one-upsmanship inherent in the 100-point system's use.

Ugh, how was the 5-star system the least voted on? Freakin lame... really hopin that poll isn't what makes (or breaks?) the (bad) decision

People are most comfortable with what they have.

http://vgchartz.com/forum/post.php?id=1526593

Do you see this post? This is a perfectly reasonable post and I am in no way knocking the poster for saying what he says therein.

But I do not ever, ever want to live under a system that means this post makes sense.

I expect them to.

@Khuutra: It's not hard to be better than Mirror's Edge. It's not like "Party Babiez is as good as Mirror's Edge" is any better, is it?

I like the 100% method. It's best for comparing. What is easier to choose between, 94 and 89 or A- and A-?

Of course, you still read the review, but scores give an at-a-glance impression of the quality of a game. Also, with the letter scale, only the A and B scores are ever used. And most of us have no idea what they mean, other than Metacritic's awful A+ = 100, A = 100 chart.