I actually didn't find those 2 articles that were linked ridiculous. The subject matter of those articles were treated with the respect they deserved.

And shouldn't this thread be more focused/speculating on X-Com: Enemy Within rather than that travesty that is gears of mass effect 3rd person shooter?

I think their WITs are pretty insightful for reviews, the lack of score and the fact you actually have to digest what they write more insightful than disagreeing with an 8.7 (whatever that means). Now having said that, I do not consider this to be journalism - this is more akin to criticism and I think RPS does really well on that, based on the type of debates that arise in their comments section. I mean there's no score, whether or not you agree with what the reviewer thought

The rest of their stuff can be divided into stuff that's based on press releases and their features. Press Releases is basically what the PR company want you to read - their job at RPS is to regurgitate the release into infotainment without buying into the bullshit. I think they do quite well on this too. Their features are pretty decent when they're being serious however I've never been a big fan of pcgamer and their tabloid/yoof writing style. I very much prefer the dry articles you get in Edge or even recently on polygon.com

I don't have a problem with the bureau actually, apart from the fact that it looks very generic and I'm just not excited about it. As a result, I'm not emotionally invested in it and i couldn't give 2 flying ducks on whether it is successfull or not.

Now EW - that's a different beast altogether.

Those aren't Wot I Thinks though, they're more like hands ons/previews since dragon commander and the bureau aren't out yet. The WITs are the reviews of games that have been released. Also, what RPS writes isn't necessary for the gamer as ultimately, i would hope that the developers would consider the criticism at that stage in the development since there is still time to rectify it.

At preview stage, talking about no green fedoras wasn't really an issue (but customisation is) - but ultimately this was an impression, and it's written as such - and what i got from it was that the previewer didn't really enjoy it. And you can't force someone to enjoy a game. Similarly, voice acting or in this case the 'barks' - its a valid complaint, production values and the sense of immersion that you get from a game does matter. Still we're talking beta/previews.

Expanding on what I wrote previously, i would hate it if I agreed with every single review I read. If you did, that would be saying that the art of reviewing games is objective. Which it isn't. WITs are opinions and that's it. It's supposed to make you think, to take the point of view of the reviewer and not to tell you whether the game is as good/bad as you want it to be.

Anyway enough of this digression. ENEMY WITHIN, NAO, THROW MONEY AT SCREEN ETC.

What i want from EW is a campaign that's better balanced in terms of difficulty, ie. doesn't get easier as the campaign progresses which is my biggest criticism of EU.