Originally Posted by JDR13
How do we know if Fallout 3 is or isn't a good game? Maybe we should actually play it first.

Yes, we do not "know", of course. We just make reasonable predictions from the available data. I don't recall an occasion on which this approach to estimating a game's worth before its release wouldn't work.

And I want to have grounds to believe a game is good or bad BEFORE I shell out lots of money for it. How can I do it, if there's no demo? I can only read previews, search for dev interviews and so on. A sound critique of some of the given game's aspects doesn't need to be based on actual experience of the game on part of the person expressing the critique in question.