Yoda, the video review was perfect for Starcraft. I mean -- where do you start, as a writing exercise, with a game with that much depth?

I give tens to a game when I cannot come up with any faults in a game.

Like you, I start at ten and then take and add points as I go through the experience. So I may take off a point for a technical glitch, but then in reflection add points for originality, creative themes, technical mastery.  It's not a formal process, but something I think about after I have beaten a game.

So LA Noire had a single gameplay issue that was kind of annoying, but in terms of it's ambition, theme, technical mastery, dialog  and character development it gets a lot of bonus points.

A game like Paper Mario or Red Dead Redemption started out perfect and never did anything along the way to lose points.  Do I have ideas as to how they could have made changes that I consider better - yes, but that is neither here nor there because I am not a game director and I did not make the game (I don;t have enough available information to judge their creative or technical choices).

It is almost impossible for a sequel to get a ten out of me, unless they have done something dramatically different in terms of technical skill.