I think the starred score and the recommendation serve two different purposes, ultimately. For all realistic purposes, I think it takes more time than we usually have to produce a truly analytic review of game. It's much easier and usually more closely representative of what we've played to provide a recommendation over a review.
Very cool - we'll probably still have scored reviews drop on the site, depending on the title, but I've always wanted to give the recommendation idea a shot and see how well it was received. Glad you dig it!
Only if you think it's not totally awesome :)
Ahaha, that reminds me, I really need to get that "like" button for comments going.
This does seem interesting, but I... don't think I can do it. Just reading stuff about it (like Matt's review) is painful. Maybe before I had kids I could've done it, but having two kids around the age of the one the author of this game lost makes it all hit way too close to home.
I thought Gone Home was a bit of a disappointment. Chessa and I pinned down the conclusion of the story almost immediately and after that it was very much just going through the motions.
Holy shit! I had no idea lego sets went for that much!
I'm looking forward to the release of PixlCross as well! And maybe if things go really well, we'll actually have a sequel to that on the market later in the year in Color!
Anyway, as soon as I get that greenlight from Nintendo, you can bet I'll send you a code for review! 
I'm thinking this article would've been better served by a trollface as its image instead.
1). Zelda Wii U
2). Dark Souls 3
3). Persona 5
4). Star Fox Zero
5). Ratchet & Clank
Ori certainly looks interesting, so I'd like to play that, but I've got no burning desire. Same goes for Invisible Inc. Undertale might be alright, but frankly it looks like Earthbound and I'm not a fan of that series so that's been a deterrent for me. As for Pillars of Eternity, I can't stand CRPGs (or western RPGs in general), so there's no way that one is going to be of much interest.
To your other point, I've taken a very long break from Ubisoft-style games and actually all games from major publishers. Unless you count Bloodborne/Souls games, I couldn't even tell you the last game I played from one of those companies. They all feel so bland to me, I just don't care to waste my time with them.
As mentioned earlier, it could just be that I'm just old now and have grown sick of most games. There's an ever shrinking pool of games I tend to enjoy and I'd say this year it's hit an all-time low for me. Looking back the only game I played this year that I really loved was Super Mario Maker and that's mostly because it did something I've been wanting for many years. I also enjoyed Bloodborne, but I put it down months ago and have had no burning desire to pick it back up.
