What makes for good writing in a video game review?

A video game review should be an expository non-interactive expression of the game itself. It should read like a well-read friend, discussing the game's context in cultural and video game history and highlighting choice scenes and elements of the experience to use as synecdochic placeholders for playing the game itself. A game review from a relatable author should be as fulfilling as playing the game itself.

Video game reviews should not rate, but compare. The game doesn't sit in a vacuum, but in the context of all other video games, television news, the latest trends in music and theater, the McDonald's value menu, and a history of literature. Great video game reviews will compare the gameplay and story to these elements instead of hashing and rehashing why they liked it. Attentive readers (the only readers a reviewer should ever want) will be able to extract an arbitrary number out of whatever scale they want using the words of the author. Numbers fade, imagery persists.