8 is an average review score on many sites because most truly awful games don't make it to the $60 shelves of 360/PS3 games since they cant get a publisher and pay all the fees. Thus the worst games that get reviewed are really still competent games so its hard to give them a 2/10 and such just because there are much better out there.

When you are spending 50-60 dollars on a game and looking at DLC costs in the future, anything lower than 8 would rarely be worth looking into unless its to your particular tastes, which Obviously Brink is to those here.

But come on people, its a 60 dollar essentially multiplayer game with 8 maps, 1 real game mode (though with varied objectives), a mediocre feature set (no replays, not a lot of party system stuff, extras), mediocre graphics (at least on consoles), and its apparently very glitchy with poor net code at launch. Anyone who expects it to or thinks it absolutely must deserve (before playing it themselves) a bunch of 8.5-9.5s is just kidding themselves and is showing who the truly biased ones are.

Ive played plenty of games that were not objectively great, theres nothing wrong with having a lot of fun on something that suits your tastes and whose flaws you can get past (no real single player doesnt matter to a lot of people)... but be realistic when looking for reviews. People who make comments like if it had CoD in the title amuse me, rather you like them rehasing the gameplay for 3 games ina row or not Black Ops is feature packed. And heh, though its rehash now CoD4 was extremely innovative so I dont know why the entire franchise gets bashed.

Brink reminds me of MAG on ps3, a fun but not fully fleshed out release that got mediocre reviews and drove a lot of players away early. But for those htat stuck around, levelled up and learned hte game it was still a good purchase.. I played it for hundreds of hours and enjoyed my purchase. Doesn't mean it should have gotten 9.8.

I do agree though that in an ideal world gaming sites should go the Ars way and give impressions now, but save the review for 2-7 days to get to actually play the multiplayer with full games and see how the servers are at launch.

I also once seen G4 get an xbox 360 slim on their show and not know it had a slot with a HDD until someone tweeted it on live TV. So yea the best research department in the world...

"I've been playing this game and it's really multiplayer based," another quote "as I'm playing through the game, both through the campaign and the multiplayer, the bots didn't help much and so you really can't play this alone; you need to team up."

What? REALLY? you mean this game involves others in a network??.... NOoooooo!!?? Four-Really????!!... I'm not reading another review. Ridiculous! All I know is I want support from the Dev's and more maps when they're available...

I only read the "joystiq" review, but I didn't feel worse about Brink at all.

Honestly, if I'd see a review claiming brink to be "just as good as Call of Duty", then I'd be worried.

Well said sir.

I also appreciate Destructoids non patched game review. That guy Jim did a good job.

Hey Bethesda, you forgot to bribe the professional review media sources - that's part of your marketing & PR budget after all.

I can only give an opinion based on the 2+ hours I've played the game on the PC so far but I can definitely say I disagree with what's been said in these reviews (for the most part):

GRAPHICS: These graphics are gorgeous! The art department deserves a pat on the back. I'm running it at 1920 x 1080 with everything turned up on an 8800 GTX (DX 9 WIN XP) and the characters and environments look really impressive.

High Five to the UI team, too - this game does NOT feel like a shoddy console port!!!

SOUND: I'm a little disappointed on the sound. The incoming hit feedback is nice (the muffled thuds of bullet impacts are a nice touch) but the lack of character customisation voices is really felt when more than half the dialogue heard sounds like a Reggae Band or All-American Troupe. I would have preferred more diversity in the voice actor options (where's my bloody Aussie voice?!).

Gunfire sounds adequate but some weapons sound a little "tinny."

CONTROLS: Just like as what was stated in the graphics section - this does NOT feel like a craptastic console-shooter port to my PC (maybe that's another reason for the low review scores?).

There are a LOT of controls to juggle from the onset but anyone familiar with a shooter more complex than Quake III: Arena can pick them up quickly (I ended up re-mapping everything as I found no use for the lean left/right maneuvers at this time and was more comfortable with the "e" key as my main interaction button).

Also, I understand the new mechanic for knock-down effects being very useful but Grenades usually bring with them a sense of AOE (Area of Effect) or area control and yet these Grenades are almost completely useless for mass-target effects. Not having Grenades for area control is something I'll need to get used to.

SP/CAMPAIGN: The short vignettes between each mission were nice but left a lot to be desired. I would have preferred more speaking from my character and a little more exposition -- the story has potential to be very deep and cerebral but, from the material I've experienced so far, I'm not getting a strong enough impact from the cut-scenes to make the context meaningful.

As for the missions themselves - the 4 I've finished felt a lot like the RTCW: Enemy Territory maps of yesteryear - glad to see them making a return.

Sadly, these bots are short bus material. They get the job done but provide no solace to those affected by the PSN blackout or desire to play in the kiddie pool for a bit.

MP/FREEPLAY: One word - Brutal. This is going to be a huge turn-off to the people expecting to bowl with bumper-plugged gutters. I've been thoroughly schooled for my initial ineptitude and found the unrelenting barrier to entry extremely intimidating. A well-organised team will devastate any P.U.G. This can all be softened by practise but I believe most players will find the steep learning curve more frustrating than challenging.

Elitism aside, this could potentially be bad for sales. It's one thing to lose due to noob-itude but losing badly again and again, and with such efficiently punishing frequency, feels bad to any player.

Coordinating with friends to join wasn't as difficult as I was expecting (as the game itself doesn't seem to make it intuitive to join with friends in matches -- but Steam's features alleviated any concerns of going it friendless).

OVERALL: I'm happy with my purchase and plan to continue playing after posting this review. I do find the content a little scant but hope the developers realise that releasing MOD tools would allow for the community to compensate for this.

Would I recommend this game to a casual shooter player? Definitely not. Would I suggest this to a hardcoe PC gamer or e-sports competitor? Yes I would! Brink brings a lot of new gameplay mechanics to the table that shatter the current paradigm of this generation's console-shooter: there's no hand-holding online, small mistakes are lethal, lone wolves lose matches and communication is imperative.

I hope this non fan-girl review from an actual customer helps people concerned by these "professional" reviews. Ultimately, a demo would have cleared this nonsense up a lot better.

6.0 from Strategy Informer - http://www.strategyinformer.com/xbox360/brink/1486/review.html

http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut is going to be doing a 'WTF Is?' first impression kinda video at the end of this week. Not a serious review but it should be entertaining as always.

The IGN reviewer sounds like he has no personality of his own. lololol

gametrailers gave it an 8.0 though they also did not wait for patch n marked it down a bit on graphics.

Great post. It's really important to realise that while some reviewers (namely IGN and Joystiq) may be attacking it wholeheartedly based on their own biases, a lot of people seem to be defending it based on the same. Anyone posting here is going to play the game, and a good deal are surely going to love it, but at least acknowledge the right for people to disagree without them having to be bribed or deemed somehow incompetant.

It's just a review. Dragon Age 2 got an 8.5 from IGN and for being an RPG I do not want to go through the game again, barely got through the first time.

Excellent review (or at least first impression), Demosthenes. It's well worded, fairly opinionated gamer viewpoints like yours I look to in order to get a sense of how a game stands up. Most of your issues with the game, like its limited narrative content and Bot problems seem to be cropping up a lot and frankly were to be expected if you ask me. Your overall positive feedback on everything else is certainly nice to hear and re-assuring to say the least.

Now I'm almost sure the story is going to be [censored] ... Maybe I've been looking at brink the wrong way all this time. I guess it would be my fault then but SD acted like it would really have one. I feel kind of lied to.

Main Problem is, that they only test single player!

Well, I'm not worried by the negative reviews from IGN or Joystiq. Any big gaming site is big for a reason. They get plenty of financial support from game developers. I don't trust any gaming site that forces you to look at advertisemants before you enter the actual site.
Much like the trolls who have come in here bashing Brink because it doesn't follow the same premise as CoD, a lot of the negative reviewers couldn't seem to hop over that learning curve involved in actually working with others to complete the game's objectives. Why is it so easy for them to say the gameplay is repetitive because there's no TDM? TDM IS REPETITIVE.

Well from my experience playing MAG, i think i can say that this game should be good when i get my hands on it later today. Team based shooters are always fun.

Anyways i'll sum up the good and bad reviews:
The Good:
Gametrailers: 7.9/10
Destructiod:7.5/10
The Sixth Axis 9/10
Inc. gamer 8.8/10
Eurogamer 8/10
VideoGamer 8/10
Games Radar 8/10
CVG 8/10
Gamerreview 8.2/10

The Bad:
IGN: 6/10
Joystiq: 4/10 or 2/5
1UP: D
G4: 4/10 or 2/5
Strategy Informer: 6/10

Have yet to hear from gamespot, and i'm sure there are many more reviews, but from what i've researched more reviewers think that Brink is a title worth playing than not (9 to 5). But regardless of the scores I'll still probably enjoy the game anyway.

these game reviewers are reviewing the main single player experience and not the online game play which is the reason we all know is why we are buying it. who cares if the a.i. is not great. who cares the cut scenes are a bit boring. who cares it has a short campaign story. and who cares its quick to max out your character. did team fortress have any of these things. no, but you played it all night every night. right!

Thank you! TF2 is amazing and so will Brink.

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1187589-good-reviews-to-read/

Guys calm down. IGN is THE worst game reviewer anyways. Their reviews are all based on opinions anyways. So they can go screw.

never the less...All reviews I have read so far adress the imbalance of the game. Choke points, engineers more proficient at killing then soldiers, lag, no lobby, no hero moments.

They are all opinions ofcourse, but seeing more reviewers writing about the same huge flaws is...not encouraging.

IGN's dissaproval of Brink only confirms my suspicions that it will actually be a great game so, great news!!

has anyone else noticed that in the video reviews its basically a guy shooting a guy and then another guy shooting a guy. its like watching a review of cod where all you do is shoot and kill. where's all the tasks getting completed in there reviews that we all know is what is the main objective to brink. they make the game look rubbish in there reviews from IGN.

I am feeling a bit disappointed for those reasons, not to mention that I really expected more actual content. Before you know it you've done all the missions.

The fact that there is a DLC option in the menu already is encouraging, and we do know they're going to balance things over time, so I don't really feel like it was wasted money. As it is right now though, yeah, disappointed.