"Benefit of the doubt" is a very important aspect of a game's success

I often bemoan the fact that marketing or circumstances surrounding a game have a disproportionate amount of sway on the perception of quality in v…

Reviews are the least important info. If you like the theme and screenshots/video looks nice enough to you, then download the demo and test it yourself. If it’s good then it is good, if it isn’t then no GOTY-awards would change that.

Most of the games have a demo version. You just need to look up in the right place.

Reviews that explain the positives and negatives are extremely useful.

I rarely see demos for games anymore.

99% of the games have demos. Except for ones with denuvo or similar shit, but you shouldn’t play them anyway.
Uh… no. That is just factually wrong and it’s not even close. I don’t know what world you live in, but I could go through my steam library of 300+ games and probably county on my hands the number of them that have a demo.

Unfortunately that’s not going to help most people.

It will. Maybe some minority live in a crazy fascist regime where they are strictly network monitored, but most people can download demo versions without problems.

99% of games have demos

Are you still living in the 90s, dude? Games rarely have demos these days.

It also is irrelevant to Highguard. It’s free to play.