Regarding Codex reviews, I strongly disagree on their worth and quality. They do tend to have very critical reviews, and I appreciate that a lot. Those are the reviews where I can learn a lot about the game. In contrast, the "please everyone" type reviews, as Wisdom aptly phrased it, which take it easy on the games, for different reasons, often because they are scared of offending someone somewhere, those reviews I think are generally very boring and not very useful.
That is one of the (very few) weaknesses of this site, to be honest, in that the reviews are almost always positive, and often glowing, for most of the rpg games. Certainly the ones with a big name. I can't remember the last major rpg game that was given a bad review here at rpg watch, for example. (that said, I love rpg watch, don't take my small bit of criticism as anything other than that, this is my favorite rpg site, and everything else about this site is outstanding!)
Whereas rpg codex has a reviewer who I think has quite a talent - Darth Roxor - they are lucky to have him as a reviewer. He is not afraid of offending someone, because he is very critical. Because he has very high standards. I respect that.
For instance, when all the sites and all the mainstream gaming press were praising to the moon the games Pillars of Eternity and Divinity Original Sin 2, in his reviews at rpg codex, Darth Roxor was very critical, and saying that these games basically suck, and he backed up his words with good reasons.
The reviews were very good, in other words, and they explained his point of view, why exactly he was saying the games were lousy, being very specific as to his issues with the games, and they were reasons that I could relate to, and nod my head, and say "yea, I would hate that too."
Anyway, as usual , I tend to be wordy sometimes, but had to defend rpg codex on this one. I am not a fan of a lot of the juvenile stuff at rpg codex, but reviews are one of their biggest strengths, in my humble opinion.