I mean neither is Swen.You were talking about mainstream reviews I never said anything about Steam until after and he was also talking about metacritic.
Swen is/was directly involved with sales/publishers. Journalists barely understand games. The other article also mentioned meta-critic as indicator for sales.
Many semi-casual players follow GS or IGN and I am sure they would give a try for games they don't know reaching 9+, especially if there is a consensus in the media that the game is good (which essentially is what metacritic is). Steam also put on his front page some selective scores to promote the game.
