Lately I've been seeing more than a few news and blog stories about game reviews and what they should or shouldn't say.

The first thing to bear in mind is that in the United States we've got freedom of speech built into our Constitution.  As a result it's my opinion that critics should say whatever they like.  The primary reason to read a review, as I see it, is to see what someone who has played the game before thinks of the game, often in advance of the game having been released, to determine whether or not one should bother playing it.  The secondary reason for reading a review is for enjoyment - I for example will read reviews of games I've played already just because I enjoy hearing others' perspectives.  But in all cases a review is just an expression of another person's opinion.  A review (or the numerical scores often associated with reviews) is not a physical law, objective and immutable.  Even if all the reviewers of the world teamed up to give a game a unanimous favorable or unfavorable review, this does not mean that the game is now objectively bad - there is no such thing. 

Of course, one problem with reviewers saying whatever they like is that they (or their employers) will have an additional agenda, which they may or may not be consciously aware of, and thus what they are saying is not guaranteed to be what they are thinking.  This is not just a problem with game reviewers but with all media, and all humans in general - there is almost always another agenda besides speaking the unadulterated truth, and the agenda affects what you see, hear, or read.  Fortunately in the media (in democratic nations anyway) there's usually someone with an opposing agenda set out to expose these scandals and bring their competitors down, so it behooves all sides to maintain some degree of integrity.

Ultimately I think it's up to readers to use their brains when they're reading reviews, and not feel like it's the end of the world if the review disagrees with their own opinion.  If there's a conspiracy to bring down a certain game developer or to undeservedly favor them, don't worry - it'll get out, and it won't be long before the publication in question either learns to sputter an apology and change its ways, or suffer from the decreased revenue that follows from a disappointed public.