Firstly, I noticed Jim post to this on his Twitter, and I read the article. And...well, uh, I have some comments. Firstly, here's the article. I should really be sleeping, but here goes. (tagging as drunk because I'm shotgunning this and publishing asap)

I'm fairly disconnected to the game community as a whole, but there's one thing that keeps bothering me. Review scores. Now, I didn't read the AC2 review as I have no system that it's on, and the game doesn't interest me anyway, but I read the above article and there are some things that I just could not get over.

The first thing is calling for a boycott on either Jim or Destructoid as a whole for a low review score. I mean, come on, really? I'm sure 4 Player Podcast gave the game its rightful score, but have people forgotten that reviews are solely opinion? And some quotes now:

"Those scores are just ridiculous. I really hope they’re not awarding low scores just to be controversial. That may get people talking, but it hurts their integrity as game reviewers."
Can not the same be said of those who give continually high scores to games? People have even started calling Famitsu into question because it has given out more perfect scores in this most recent generation than ever before. Do you take any review site that gives constant low scores seriously? Why exclude those who go on the positive side?

"The gameplay is super-refined and the storyline completely sucked me in throughout. To get such a low score is a clear sign that this reviewer had an agenda."
I remember reading another article here (or the second one) that describes it's as though the scale only exists in 6-10, and anything below that is sheer blasphemy. Is it wrong to give a score that accurately depicts your feelings of what you review? It's like if you review a steak in the restaurant. It's terrible. Who calls out the food critic for giving it one star? Yes, the chef/restaurant, but who else?

"Sterling is prone to inciting reaction from just about anyone. I don’t agree with his method of review due in part to how some games he reviews in context with it’s hype, instead of just reviewing the game of it’s own merits, hype or not."
One thing I'll bring up here is how a hype train failure can still negatively affect a score. Daikatana says hello. If I order steak and you give me chicken, I'm not necessarily going to shrug and eat what I didn't want. Exaggeration, but I'll go on. It's late, shut up.

"I don’t know much about Jim Sterling himself, with the exception he exists and writes for Dtroid.

Able to go into reading his review with an unbiased opinion, I get the feeling that he simply doesn’t like the game. And therefore is willing to smack it around. Which, like someone mentioned above, is fine. Have your opinions, that’s cool. But if you choose to write for a large gaming website or magazine, I think you need to put your feelings at the door and write a genuine review for the kind of audience you want to read your articles. If he’s catering to some elitest wanker graphic-whore high-def demographic, then the review is in their ballpark. Personally I would prefer to read a review where the pros and cons are balanced, or at least shown in a just light; which can be done in this game.

Opinion obviously factors into how you write reviews, but you can’t let it flavor your entire article like this. Then it’s just trashy and attention grabbing. This guy is a 4.5/10 reviewer imo."
Okay, full stop. I understand that there's "writing to your audience" which is fine and good, but sometimes you just can't do pros and cons without sounding condescending or patronizing. If he didn't like the game, then should he not make that absolutely clear? You can't be fair and balanced if you're nowhere near the fence of neutrality you're supposed to be riding. There was a very lengthy review of Flower, Sun, and Rain for the DS some time ago that wound up with a low score yet an Editor's Choice award. If he left his feelings at the door for the review, would it have been any better to read? Probably not. In fact, you'd edge towards a simple fact sheet: This is the good stuff; this is the bad stuff. If there are no feelings, then how do we connect to the reviewer?

Hell, it'd make the reviewer's job piss-easy. "Here, write a list of five things you liked and didn't like about the game." It's so easy! With such a clear-cut list of facts, surely this would be clear of bias! ...oh wait. People are still writing reviews. Time to fire them all and replace them with cold heartless robots!

"“Destructoid also awarded the following scores: (Jericho- 7/10, Ju On- 6/10, WET- 7.5/10). Using different journalists to write reviews is one thing but there should be a generally accepted trend in their reviews that can allow for comparisons between scores. None of the games I just listed are better than ACII or even ACI for that matter.”

I’m not for scores in general but this isn’t how it works. Those game you just listed aren’t anything like Assassin’s Creed and, as you said, are from different reviewers. Games that are in the same genre, generally, can be compared. I just don’t like the way you went about this, looking only at scores, if you want to look at the text of the review and pick it out that way, I understand. But overall this seems a bit rash.

Opinions!

Also, I’m not sure what in that article is suppose to make me believe he would be biased against the game."
I will say one thing about this. It's nice to get a second opinion, though unfortunately, everyone has their own preferences. GameFAQs has a system where anyone can give a review, and some of them are all over the place. That does build a better average, but it's still skewed because not everyone participates.

Below here is the response to the above quote:

"It doesn’t matter that those games are nothing like AC. Every one of those games was flat out broken and in some cases, unplayable. Whether you are a fan of AC or not, the mechanics themselves are solid and playable. To not dock as many points from those games is ridiculous. To imply that you would rather play WET, which controls like dog shit, than AC is absolute bullshit. That’s all that I am saying.

P.S.- AC2 is a triple AAA title."
Again, the top poster's ring of "Opinions!" is true. Maybe WET didn't control like dog shit for me. But should I say that anyway because you think so? That's just not how it works! You know what "triple AAA" sounds like? 11/10. What gets me is that those games getting better scores than AC2 is terrible. Different reviewers, yes, but isn't it possible to not like a hyped anticipated game?

"This seems to assume that the value of a review article is merely to “get it right.” But this assumption doesn’t seem right. Critics aren’t automatons cranking out “unbiased,” perfectly balanced, flavorless articles. The best critics are, above all else, great writers."
Thank you. Just wanted something positive. =P

"I have no qualms with his writing. As far as I can tell, he is a fantastic writer. I even agree with most of his complaints. My complaint is with the weight he is assigning to his complaints. A 4.5/10 is a bit excessive for one of the biggest games of the year when most critical reception has been positive."
Okay, let's pause here and think for a second. This really smacks of 'it's popular so it has to be good.' Am I wrong? There should be no protection for a game against a very low score. This goes back to the hype train thing I mentioned earlier. AC2 was hotly wanted and I'm sure some people were disappointed. But did people 'go easy on it because of the hype and potential backlash? Why shouldn't even a popular DO WANT game be rated poorly? What right is there to guard the game against a low score if everyone else is singing its praises? Is there such a protection against a criminally reviled game so that it gets high marks?

Say, have you heard of a game called Kane & Lynch...?

"a lot of people praise dtoid because they have “the most honest views on games”. just because they have more underwhelming scores than others and curse doesn’t make them more honest or real.

that aside, their entire score system lays itself to be controversial, as they claim that a bad game is a 3-4/10 score."
No shit, Sherlock. Dtoid isn't the only place to call 3-4 bad, you know. Oh sorry, did I curse? I didn't mean to do it. Funny how 'underwhelming' implies that everyone here shoots below average just to piss everyone off.

"This is also a guy who reviewed Halo Wars without even playing half of the campaign (and later republished the review after all the shit he caught for it). A site that did team reviews for both Prototype and inFAMOUS, declaring Prototype to be the superior title. Sterling’s hand was in both of those reviews as well.

He’s a fucking narcissist and just loves seeing his name in print. Those who’ve drank the Destructoid Kool-Aid fellate him so that maybe their next community blog will get promoted to the front page, giving Destructoid more free hits for free, user-created content.

Jim Sterling is the Jack Thompson of video game “journalists”"
I'm not even going to touch this one.
[i]
"You say review scores don’t matter, but judge an entire site based on a game series that is known for being very polarizing getting crap review scores. Then you proceed to say that the scale is skewed due to inconsistency.[/i]

You lose.

Good day, sir."
At least someone isn't staying up too late blogging about something people won't read. D:

"Excuse me, but since when does having an unpopular opinion qualify someone for a shitlist? That seems extremely petty and unwarranted. No game is well-liked by everyone, not even critically acclaimed games like Modern Warfare 2 or Uncharted 2. The Assassin’s Creed franchise is not the cream of the crop anyway, and Mr. Sterling happens to not like it.

Do I think he went a little over-the-top? Possibly. But that’s his opinion, and he’s entitled to it. It’s extremely judgmental and shallow to get upset because he’s the one critic on Metacritic who hated the game. I hope you’ll rethink this and, with all due respect, grow up a little. Being passionate and having unpopular opinions is nothing to slam a person for."
...well crap, this is the entirety of this blog in two paragraphs.

"One thing to keep in mind, especially with reviews for any kind of media, is taste. Reviewers are not unbiased, nor are they completely objective, and that must be taken into account when you read or watch a review of something. This is made far easier when one person reviews for a site, as you can get a gauge of that person’s taste, how it matches up with yours, and from there extrapolate exactly how much value their reviews will be to you.

With Destructoid, while I think the staff should be reviewing games on a larger scale (Sterling has done many of the recent reviews, and I’d like to see more in the way of variety), it is easy to get a feel for how Jim thinks and thus easier to determine whether or not his reviews are worthwhile to you. Nick, you seem to agree with the points he raised, but not with how much emphasis he put on them, and in that respect you should treat his taste as being similar to yours, but slanted to a certain direction.

Example: I find that my taste in movies lines up very well with the Spill crew overall, and so I go to them for my movie reviews. This ensures that I can determine how much I’d like a movie based on their reaction to it, and thus whether or not I should watch it.

In this case, I think you should simply boycott Sterling’s reviews. There’s no shame in it, or hard feelings. They simply don’t line up with your tastes, and as such aren’t worth your time.

That’s my overly-long two cents."
This was the most recent post at the time I decided to stop this. And a good way to end a bad blog.

But yeah, I'll go over the main points again.

Every person is entitled to their own opinion. Opinions cannot be inherently right or wrong, since they are based on the interpretation of facts. Any game deserves the right to be judged on the full ten point scale regardless of hype, marketing, or worse, bribery. A game also deserves to be judged fairly independent of how other people review the game. Reviews are not law and do not hurt you in any way. Reviewers cannot be completely subjective all the time. You shouldn't thumbs-up something you don't like or thumbs-down something you do. Games are serious business. But why is that? Reviews are just numbers. If you like the game, fine. If not, fine. How does a bad score harm you? How does someone not liking a game harm you? If someone presents his side of the argument well, then does the score really matter? Or are we so lazy that we Page Down to the end and look at the score and start bitching?

I apologize for my not-much-content bad blog and how it's pretty much a repost of the comments section above, but I had to say something or I wouldn't be able to sleep. I just can't understand how some people think...

Anyway, that's all I had to say. Thanks for surviving to the end.