I killed 4 birds with one stone on my site:
A couple years back I started something where trusted members can post to a subforum called But is it Fun? The reviews are meant to be 4 paragraphs in length (easy to read), written by regular human beings (easy to relate to), based on the first couple play periods (3-10 hours), and sum it up with a Rent It, Buy it, Avoid it "score."

I can tell you flat out, given the popularity and the number of people that read the whole thing that yes, it is the right way to go. That is, if you HAVE to assign a score. People generally use the last paragraph to explain why they're about to give it the score they give. Also, people tend to write about genres which they understand, which makes it even better.

But then, we can do this because we don't owe any dev or publisher a damn thing. Also, we don't have ads. Also, we don't care about metacritic because it's just a big STD on the face of gaming.

So yea, you can try to fight the good fight but as long as you're chasing after journalism as a career, all you're going to be doing is tilting at windmills while being the rebel without a clue.

Edit: Obviously some of the reviews in BiiF are more successful than others, but generally they're pretty trusted. And you know what, even bad writing is ok when its honest.

This is the best system I've seen: http://www.affectionatediary.com/?p=446 Warning: strong language, NSFW

"Affectionate Diary will be implementing a grading system based on the sequence of Fibonacci numbers from 1-21: 1,2,3,5,8,13,21. This weighting allows for much more accurate assessment of games in the traditional 6-8 bracket, as well as making truly exceptional games like Warriors Orochi 2 and Disgaea 3 much easier to distinguish from titles such as John Woo’s Stranglehold or Call Of Duty 3."

The whole thing is brilliant.