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Message: <blockquote data-quote="R_kajdi" data-source="post: 3945995" data-attributes="member: 24709">I think that's a good bit of why I find reviews to be not incredibly valuable. Why am I going to bother to read something that's basically been handpicked from among a bunch of fanboys to ensure a favorable rating? It's the same reason I don't bother with video game reviews. The only way to have a decent review process would be to go the Consumer Reports route, and that doesn't work in this case because of the long lead times in writing reviews. It takes me at least a week to digest the latest WotC length book, and even then the subtle issues only come up during play.   The other issue I've seen with reviews is that, especially with "big name" writers, there tends to be a huge fan effect to drown out the negative reviews. As an example, you need look no further than EN World's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil reviews. A bunch of Monte Cook fans started spamming reviews at one point, mainly because they didn't want to see the module go to a low "average" review level.    As a consumer, if I bother to look at reviews anywhere for anything, I usually try to only read the negative ones. They tend to be the most honest about the product-- in a few cases, I've looked into getting stuff because the drawbacks that are sighted are not significant for me. Piles of glowing reviews by the usual biased sources don't interest me any more than normal marketing releases.</blockquote>

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