Chrono Cross is 10/10 material though.

From the Destructoid review:

"...combat is now essentially Assassin's Creed, as most of the nuances like stances are now gone."

That's disappointing to me personally, but it isn't a dealbreaker by any means.

This reminds me of Dragon Age Inquisition: Stellar reviews from critics pre-release, and then more...'diverse' opinion from gamers after they played a few dozen hours of it. I hope the latter won't happen to Witcher 3.

I usually give it a month before giving a game a serious look review wise(I'll take forum experiences over reviews any day). Before that people are just too happy that they even get to play the game to realize any possible flaws.

Given the media barrage Witcher has had I'd certainly give it at least a week.

In the age of YouTube I have absolutely no reason to trust corporate written reviews, I have no idea if the "reviewer" even played the game. I'd rather skip around some gameplay footage and decide if I want to buy based on that.

With that said, I hope The Witcher III is a great game, but I'll be the judge of that when I play it.

Right, I predict the majority of "reviews" shortly after release will be bullshit, regardless of the source. People will either completely overhype it, or bash it for objectively irrelevant details.

It will probably take a while until the hype subsides and some useful reviews start coming in. And I'd always recommend not to rely on a single source of information.