Duke Nukem Forever and Reviews

First, off let me say that i have not played Duke Nukem Forever (nor do i plan to).  In fact the only exposure i have to the series is playing some of the early adventure (shareware) games and a little Duke Nukem 3D (my roommate used this for LAN parties a lot).  So, to me, Duke Nukem seems to have played a big part in what was eventually to become online gaming (like XBL).  In fact that was one of the reasons i was not interested in this title - i view it more as a multiplayer game (i have problems in general with shooters too).  This is more of a reaction to what i have seen in the video game press.

The review scores i have seen in the press for Duke Nukem Forever are largely indefensible.  What i am really getting at here is that the video game reviewers are showing a distinct lack of professionalism with their reviews for this game (unjustifiably harsh scoring).  They are showing a distinct lack of any objectivity.  Actually that is a major problems with reviews themselves - they are too subjective - they give some games 9.0s that don't deserve it and are way to harsh on other games.  The way i see it, if a game works technically (not a lot of game crashing/killing bugs, playable) it deserves a 5.0 base score.  Some points can be taken off for specific problems.  Load screens are annoying, but not a real technical problem. 

Sure, i never expected this game to be a work of art, but i'm sure it is better than some games which scored much higher.  One of the problems is that Gearbox stayed remarkably close to the original intent of the game (which finally got off the vaporware list).  The long/troubled development cycle is another strike against it.  However, the complaint i find most egregious is the editorializing about the character and morality of the game.  It is not a real game journalist's place to use a review as a bully pulpit.  This game is getting slammed for offending some feminist sentimentalities (i'm not going to get into how intellectually dishonest feminism actually is here).   Who cares is Duke comes off as sexist or misogynistic.   That can actually be seen as some of the charm of a game (in this non-offensive vanilla climate).   

Now, if Gearbox wanted to do something interesting... release all of the Duke Nukem games on XBL and PSN as downloadable content that launches from the full commercial game.  i could go for some of the really early Duke Nukem games.  So use the catalog as a value added proposition for the retail game.