It's a poor show, for sure, and a sad indication of how much control the money and ad-men have over the reviewers (and media in general). Luckily there are a million web sites with reviews and opinions, so we can find ones we trust. And there are even more warez sites for us to try for ourselves

I have to say I go a lot on word-of-mouth when choosing games. But then, because I buy relatively few games I don't take that many risks on more obscure games.