Review Policy

Gaming Tier List is primarily a guide website that focuses on providing guides. Reviews, are in a way, a guide to if you should purchase a game or not. To that end, our reviews are more guides to if a game is worthwhile or not and why.

info

Our review policy only applies to content listed in https://www.gamingtierlist.com/category/reviews/.

We do not go out of our way to cover controversy, so reviews are either sourced from games our writers are actually buying and playing or through developer provided game keys. In the later scenario, we will disclose in the article if we received a key (or any other compensation for the coverage).

All review content should have in the first section of the article a conclusion on what we think about the game to save the reader the time of going through a full read of the review. Sometimes you may want to just know what our opinion is and get right to it, we shouldn't hide that behind our justification.

The review though should justify our reasoning and provide what we liked and don't like about the game. Since anything we cover should be decent enough, all reviews should include positives and negatives on the game.

There is zero tolerance for accepting developer intervention into our review process except with the respect to embargos (which we will honor) or beta builds. We provide more below.

Previews

Reviews can cover early access games only if they denote that it is early access. Beta builds, alpha builds, pre-release builds should not be reviewed, instead an editorial preview can be crafted. A game can have multiple previews by multiple authors, but only one review per game lifecycle (i.e. FFXIV could have multiple reviews for each expansion and several re-reviews).

A great example is the game Inklunati. Many sites published a "Inklunati Review" but the game is in early access and has drastically changed since those reviews were published. Not denoting the status of the game when the game was examined can leave behind misinformation in the future.

Embargos

We honor all embargos. If we don't agree with an embargo we will accept whatever is embargoed. We will not break an embargo for any reason.

Review Copies

We accept review copies of the game but will include a note in the article that we accepted the review key. We will not accept any other compensation for the review. Writers are allowed to participate and receive swag, although we do not accept swag for the review; it has to be seperate from the discussion. If a review key/copy is granted, we will denote it in our review. In cases a review key was granted, but the review was done on a purchased copy, we will still denote this.

No Rating System

We refuse to have a rating system of any kind. That includes:

• Numbers (1/5 or 5/10)
• Letters (A, B, C, F)
• Stars (5 Stars)
• Thumbs-Up/Down

While we're gaming tier list and rank heroes, that is completely seperate to the concept of rating a game.

Why Rating Systems Don't Work

Ratings just don't work. If you're looking at a rating scale right and if we're thinking about it and we think 5/10 should be right in the middle. A 5/10 game should be the average of what most games should be around. Very exceptional games should exceed that and games that are just poorer than the standard should be rated less.

Yet, games rating doesn't follow that logic. It uses a "numerical grading system" which "grades" the game and then gives it a "rating" so in this scenario, anything above a 70 would be passing. Move the rating system to a 10-point scale and a 70 becomes a 7.

7/10

Overall, this game was a solid but unremarkable experience. It does many things right and will provide some enjoyment, especially for fans of the genre. However, some frequent rough edges, lack of polish, and repetitive gameplay prevent it from being a truly great game. For a discounted price, it's worth checking out if you go in with tempered expectations. But at full price, there are likely better options out there to spend your hard-earned money on. While not a bad game by any means, it's not a standout title that will stay with you or have you eagerly anticipating a sequel.

The review for this game is a 7/10.

4/10

This game fails to deliver on nearly every front. While the concept initially seems promising, the poor execution leaves much to be desired. Boring gameplay, uninspired visuals, weak writing, and an overall lack of polish undermine the experience. So many basic facets of the game simply don't work well or feel half-baked. Unless you're morbidly curious or a hardcore fan of the genre willing to slog through a subpar entry, I cannot recommend spending your time or money on this title. There are too many excellent games out there today to waste time and frustration on something this mediocre. Give this one a pass.

The review for this game is a 4/10.

How We Review a Game

We review a game by just telling you what we think about it. In our opinion we may share our thoughts on:

• If you should purchase the game or wait for a discount.
• Related games that if you like, then we think you may like this one as well.
• Suggestions on avoiding a game outright (rare, we strive to only cover games we like and don't waste resources and ones we)

Why We Don't Review Games We Don't Like

If we don't like a game then odds are no one on staff will purchase it or have absolutely any fun playing it. That's not fair to the developers to go at a game that you don't like to begin with. It's also not fair to the readers to have a review that's just negative and doesn't contribute to the discussion. That's not to say that if we feel we can provide additional discourse to the game, we will provide that but generally we don't go out of our way to play games we're not into. Another reason a rating system can fail you, a game that upsets the writer might receive another point off or a game that's very favorable to the writer's preferences can get an extra point. We want to just give you our opinion.