And people think I would get sued for calling out blatant as fuck money hats.
You are wrong about the "money hats" and posters in that thread are right to call you on it. The truth is most people are stupid and have bad taste. Intelligent people believe this, even if they say otherwise, because this is what it means to be intelligent. Being smart means the rejection of and distaste for bad ideas. Of course, stupid people believe this too and smart people feel this way about each other and so on. It's all a mess, naturally, but you have to find where you stand and then care less about what the stupid (or at least the exceedingly stupid) think. You need to understand this and then get over it or else you'll become resentful towards those who can only disappoint you (videogame journalism).
Smart, tasteful criticism is something you must find (or create yourself), it will generally not be given to you. This becomes more true the more "niche" that subject is (like within videogames, for fighting games, relatively few people are interested enough to really understand them and those that are don't necessarily have the chops to be good critics). To sit here and ask for the better game to win at an award ceremony, the whole purpose of which is to put criticism in the backseat for spectacle and flattery and what criticism it has is aggregated from the same ol' incompetents, is to have ridiculously high expectations. I feel as if you are caught between believing you know better than the know-nothing reviewer and yet craving their approval.