Aaron said:
I know I don't automatically fall to that assumption. If the controls don't seem to work right, the gameplay seems off, I usually try to find if I'm really playing it as the creator of the game suffered through a year or more making it actually intended. I don't just jump to the conclusion crap after I've only put in ten minutes. That would be monstrously stupid. Sometimes a game really is crap, but a reviewer should start with the benefit of the doubt.
That's pretty much what I came here to post.
Burai is right in that a lot of people do have that attitude, but it certainly shouldn't be an attitude a reviewer has. Like if I'm reviewing a game and it feels crap and I'm thinking I don't get it, I'll re-read the manual, find forum posts (if the game has been released in another region already) and other reviews to see if they can clue me in.
And if a reviewer doesn't have that attitude towards certain games, it's the editors job to make sure the right person gets the right game. This is like the biggest problem with reviews -- editors basically never do this. They have "the sports guy" and "the RPG guy" but beyond basics like that, they won't put much thought into it.
Besides, OXM hate arcade games with a passion. I mean, they scored Crystal Quest higher than Mutant Storm and Jewel Quest scored higher than Bejeweled 2 -- and both of them scored higher than 80% of the games on XBLA. That's just not right.