Well if you're reviewing a game you should review every component of it and not half-ass anything. You left a small section towards the Split-Screen component and left out any mention of the performance issues it has.
I'm not sure what you'd consider a "little bug" I know several people have reported that their saved progress has gotten wiped on certain levels, and achievements aren't working at all. Additionally as I stated above the sound issues really do put a huge damper on the experience.
By choice or by force I can't help but notice none of the review sites (Including you) bothered mentioning any of the bugs present in the game and given how frequently they surface, and the scale of issues they cause I look at that as further reason to distrust the gaming media.
I agree that comprehensiveness is a desirable objective in reviews, and one I always strive towards. But you also run into word count issues with more complex games. 1200 words is the sweet spot for a detailed review, with every word the writer goes over that reducing the chance that readers will finish the review. I set 1700 as my limit for "extra long" game reviews, with this particular one going just a smidge over that (~1750).
Whatever length the writer chooses to work within, we can only report the things that we actually experience or hear about from reliable sources (including forums) during the review process. The bugs I saw were just AI acting weird occasionally, such as during the Tartarus fight in Halo, and a little weird checkpoint teleportation during online co-op of another level in that game.
I did not experience or hear about sound issues or save data loss before writing the review. I did hear of an Achievement failing to unlock from a coworker, but that could have been an isolated incident (now we're hearing it's a bit more common through other channels).
Finally, you can't just list every little positive or negative thing you encounter during a game in a review of any length, because everything has to fit within the flow of the review. It has to read smoothly, with things fitting organically within paragraphs and in relation to other elements of the review. The pieces have to fit together.
On top of that, if you pick too many nits within a review of a game you intend to represent positively, the tone of the review will become more negative than intended. Managing the tone of a review is similar to managing flow, because a good review (like any good essay) will have a consistent tone that is not outweighed by elements of contrasting tone.
In other words, if I really like this game, I need to report on things that annoy me, but I have to decide how much things really affect my enjoyment and leave out some things that have little bearing on it. It might not even be nitpicks that get left out, but say a minigame that just doesn't matter towards (my impression of) the overall quality of the game.
These are all factors that anyone who writes at a college and professional level has to deal with, and mostly stuff that a consumer wouldn't experience or consider (unless they develop their writing as a hobbyist over an extended length of time). It's no reason to distrust the media. You just have to understand what we go through during the review and writing process, and what our goals are when we write a review (such as managing flow and tone).
And of course, readers need to know that reviews are opinions and quality is subjective, which an alarming number of adults do not understand. Just because you disagree with a review does not mean that the reviewer was dishonest or unworthy of trust. It simply means that he or she is a different person than you and has different tastes and perspectives.
The vast majority of the "non sexist" GGers who are critical of the media simply don't understand how gaming journalism works, making accusations that are nearly always off-base or ill-informed.
