I tend to put more faith on private reviews -- things like Gamefaq reviews. I tend to be distrustful of the pro reviewers for very simple reasons.

First off, like movie critics they tend to emphasize things that no one cares about. Some of them seem to want to bash the popular stuff just because it's popular. Yes, we've seen the same ol' ATB a million times before. That doesn't mean that it suck, it means it works. And just because the story is bland, gamers who like shooters probably don't give a fig.

Second, There are no hidden biases. Look at any "gamer mag" and you'll see the same games advertized and reviewed. Not a great shock perhaps, but that and the fact that they get a copy of the game for free is going to color the reviews they write. If they blow apart Call Of Doody by a major publisher, that publisher can pull their ads for other games. They might not get the exclusive interviews. Essentially the gamer mags exist to *sell games*, so there isn't a lot of incentive to disuade you from buying a crappy game.

The third thing is that game reviewers literally get the game for free, which is different from most of us peons who shell out $50 on release day. They can't really know how disapointed a fan of a game series will be when they preordered and bought the game at retail. They don't buy em at all.

With amateurs, you get a lot of advantages. Generally, they're fans of the genre and probably the series. So they're familiar with most of the conventions and the expectations of the game genre. If an RPG fan doesn't like an RPG, they won't hate it for being turn based, or having bad graphics or something that isn't a big deal to most RPGers. They won't rip apart Halo because the plot was predictable. They'll blast RPGs for boring plots and Halo for sluggish controls.

You also don't need to worry as much about bias. Square doesn't pay RPG fans to play FF, they certainly don't give away the gamedisks. The reviewer isn't going to be coy about his feelings. If he hates Sephiroth, he'll say so. If the soundtrack makes his ears bleed, you'll hear about it.