Gabe Newell sat on it.

I would believe it's because there is no room for individual taste among reviewers.

A person scoring a game low because he isn't into that genre or doesn't enjoy that particular artstyle or story is not allowed. You will never see a person that doesn't like sandbox games reviewing GTA, for example.

When you taylor reviewers to the genres and games they like, scores tend to average out pretty high.

Your first sentence does not go very well together with the other three.

1) I have to agree with strategyking and what you said about people not even reading reviews. people are just way more concerned with the score and where it places on metacritic.

2) Another thing is can you really trust reviewers/ reviews, when we have seen signs that certain companies go out of their way to get favorable reviews. personally i think some reviewers/review sites are more afraid of developer reactions to their reviews than fanboys.
( not saying all reviewers/ review sites are like this but definetly some are)

3) Also people tend to take reviewers opinions as law and don't realize that what that reviewer said is just that an opinion.

4) I don't think there is a fix, the review system can be improved but there will always be flaws and problems in it that will make people claim it is broken.

Reviewers don't actually review the game for what it does. Rather, they harp on something it does not.

Not all bases are covered. By that I mean Gameplay, Sound, Graphics, Length/Lasting Value.

Games are reviewed because of their names rather than their content.

Reviewers do not like the console, nor the genre of the game they are reviewing.

Reviews are paid off.

Inaccuracies are abound in terms of the games content.

And finally, games are only rated from 7-10

8. Because people liked the game, they think it's actually a good game.

This is huge on the list for me.

I could also say it's because of the 100 point scoring system. It's absurd!

I just hate how anything under a 9 is called bad and if its exclusive then it flopped if its under 9.

I consider under 7 not worth my time, 7-8 is I'll check it out if it looks decent, 8-9 is I'll almost definitely check it out and over 9 is amazing.

the review system is broken because " people liked the game, think it's a good game". Care to give an example, plus people like bad stuff sometimes. 2012 is a horrible movie, but made 200 million dollars this week, is the review system bad because reviewers gave it a bad score?