Lindwurm

I wouldn't say the system is broken, it's more that the system hasn't matured. Gaming media is still pretty much an enthusiast press - I don't know if any of them, even IGN, are big enough to have their editorial staff be completely separate from their writing staff.

Fired them all and hired new ones. No offense to Jeb, Bill and Bob, but they've been around the solar system enough that it's time for some fresh faces in space.

If this were the review system of a blog or fan site, you could dismiss it as extreme. Unfortunately, it's from a large magazine in Europe, and is an example of someone trying totally objective reviews - only to drop it like a hot potato once it became clear it didn't work. You said review scores are meaningless, and I agree. Where I disagree is the assertion that breaking it down into sections makes them mean anything. You can't quantify graphics or gameplay. How can you objectively quantify these things? What would earn a game an 80% instead of a 90%? Would a triple-A game with a multi-million dollar budget like Watch_Dogs deserve a higher graphical score than something with hand-drawn 2D animations like Metal Slug? And if it does or doesn't, how would you quantify those scores?

No offense, but breaking down reviews into 'objective' slices is pointless at best. At worst, you get the mess computerbild.de tried a few years ago. It's a mess of arbitrary percentages with no meaning. By all means, a reviewer should keep their personal opinions from defining the review and lambasting or praising a game that doesn't deserve it, but otherwise they're inherently subjective.