I have read Gamespot reviews for more then 12 years. I never watched another site. Until last year, I started to glimpse at IGN.
And from this year, Im generally going by 1Up and a few other basic review sites, not affected by promos as much, to get a decent review.
Gamespot is but a memory of what it once was.
Just look at Battlefield 3 vs Modern Warfare 3. Im not a fan of either but enjoy them both. But BF3 deserved a 9+ for its daring entrance to that kind of graphics, and MW3 deserved maxium 7 for its ripoff that could have been a DLC, just to name a few.
Overall Gamespot does a decent job but it feels as they feel its their right to dish some games that are great, and then give great score to obscure games that might though be fresh in the ideas.
Simply put, they are not consistent. Its too much personal taste that shows through, and a game site such as Gamespot cant have that, since it is the largest site on internet for game reviews, but it is slowly fading away from the old school gamers due to we simply dont feel that its a serious site any longer.