Because people like to listen to other people, when it is LITERALLY their job to find something wrong with the game and complain about it. That's why I don't listen to movie reviews, game reviews ect ect. Because they try to find things wrong with it, that most people won't notice or care about.

Reviews are great for providing insight as to what makes a game great from another persons perspective. If the perspective matches my own, I use said review along with other factors to determine whether or not the game will fit my criteria of whether a game is good or not. One review should almost never solely be used to determine ones take on a piece of art or entertainment.

There not. If publications could I'm sure they wouldn't have them, but the public demands them. It's they easiest way to compare games and have a score/money ratio. I don't care if GTA 5 has a 99 on metacritic, I don't enjoy GTA or RDR so I'm not going to buy it. I'm not ever going to bash it though because it's a technical marvel. If you talk to a experienced reviewer on IGN or another major website they most probably will say that they don't like scores and would prefer you to make your own judgement on games based of the text.

I like reviews for the review; the score is secondary. Pretty much any major title will get at least an 8, and anything between an 8 and 10 is "good". An IGN "10" is probably an objective 8.5 or 9. An IGN 5 is probably a 6-7. I love Angry Joe's reviews because he does 20 minutes of compliments and criticism, and then slaps on a largely irrelevant score at the end.

I can't recall whether it was Gamespot's Or IGN's review, but they went a step further with GTA4. It was page after page of faults with the game, but then a 10/10 score... Madness!