Couple of things:

 I've more than once declared my not caring much for scores. But if you're going to use a scale, apparently a scale that grade different elements, you have to deduct for something of things you don't think are hurting. My English teachers loved my essays in terms of context and writing style. But my grades reflected that there ever was a case of a person that needed an editor, I was him.  As such is the nature of grading games on a scale. Even if you still had fun and can look past those minor issues, you still have to account for them.  And unless you're crazy anal about what tenth of a point a game gets and write death-threats because a Zelda game got  9.3 and and not a 9.6., I think most people are sensible enough to realize above a certain point on the scale, the game is good. But if you're handing out score, they have to be justified.

That said, the job does involve comparing it against it's peers. Critics typically aren't called upon to review a game in a vacuum and other games are one part of the cultural language to help a reader understand elements of a game they haven't played yet. It's perfectly acceptable for critics to do that. And more often than not, if there's fun to be had with a game, even if flawed, you'll catch that in a review as well. But ultimately it's an opinion. And if you can't ask a reviewer to play the game and relay your experience, they can only write about their own which is naturally come under the lens of things that they value or not. Just as not every gamer is the critic, not ever gamer is you either. And no critic can cater their review to everybody.

This article reminded me of (of all things) old-school Gamepro reviews - specifically, the "Fun Factor" rating, with the goofy faces.  I never picked up many Gamepro mags (I sold my gamer's soul to EGM long, long ago), but I do remember reading a few issues, and seeing reviews in which the "Sound" and "Graphics" scores were very low, and even the "Controls" score not being great, but the "Fun Factor" was maxed out.

Regarding my immortal soul and Electronic Gaming Monthly, much of my EGM mad love came from the three member review crew scores, not because they frequently reached a consensus in their review scores, but because they frequently had radically differing scores, and were able to explain their differences.  Often, one reviewer would be the odd man out, either loving or hating a game in the face of the other two reviewers.  More often than not, that reviewer's opinion came down to how much FUN they had playing the game.

I'm with you, Siri.  While a critical analysis of a game's elements is important in a review, I have found that most of my favorite reviews and articles written about specific games and games in general have related the reviewer's personal experience with the game, in all of their flawed, numberless, non-quantifiable prose.  In other words, a review can seem empty without mentioning how much FUN it was.  When a reviewer writes about how they hated the story, and how a game is flawed, but they stayed up all night playing and only stopped because they had to make their deadline, that speaks more to me about the game than a dry write-up any day.  

Oh, and you former (and now current - Hooray!) EGM staffers, it's YOUR fault my wife beats up on me in Tetris Attack, and why Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast sucked away large chunks of my life.  These are two games I picked up not for their review scores (which were excellent, admittedly), but because I read, month after month between articles in EGM, how these games were causing you to lose sleep and work time.

I don't mind repetitive gameplay -- but I do mind game design that takes you through the same goddamn levels and bosses (three of four times for one boss in Devil May Cry 4, if memory serves!). That's half-assed game design as far as I'm concerned. And it's not even a case of backtracking -- you're just going through the same level again. Stupid Devil May Cry 4....

Excerpt from a an article in today's Dallas Morning News. It isn't review or game specific (the author is a film critic), but I think the mindset would help a lot in game criticism:

"Contrary to popular belief, my job is not to tell you what to see. If you agree with me, that's great, and it shows you have impeccable taste. But your taste will never be identical to anyone else's, much less mine. I'm here to start a series of conversations about a subject with a vast history and an infinite number of moving parts. I want to engage you, to entertain you enough to keep you reading, to convey, in lively prose, a sliver of the passion that goes into the best movies. If I'm doing my job, you look at film, or a film, a little differently than before you picked up the paper or clicked the link next to my byline.

Ideas and the skill with which you present them go a lot further than opinions, which, as a wise man once said, everybody has. Hopefully you can tell whether I liked a movie after reading one of my reviews; more important, you should feel you've read a cogent and lively piece of writing."

The full article can be read here: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/0711sunlede.1f6993.html