Personally, I find it hard to trust reviews because most of the time they want to shove their ideals down your throat, and are being biased when they aren't being paid off to give 10/10 scores.
But sometimes it can help us from making bad decisions, though sometimes I find myself even enjoying games that get really low scores.

http://i.imgur.com/MORSzgs.jpg
^this is an example of what I hate seeing in reviews

What are your views on gaming reviews?

I assume that is the same writer for all those reviews.

The solution, and what everyone should be doing instead of bashing news sites or whatever people do, is to see who the actual writer of said reviews are.

For example, the author (I assume it is one) in the attached picture: just do not read his reviews. Sure, he/ she has an agenda but they are allowed to express that. A review is, after all, an opinion. Additionally, gender equality is, for some reason, an important topic in gaming atm.

I usually just skim read reviews myself just to get a general sense of what the reviewer thinks of the game. i prefer watching vid reviews to see actual footage and hopefully they link their words to video evidence.

But yeah, just find a writer (or news outlet) which you can agree with and just stick with that. That way your taste is catered for.

I was just pointing out an example of things that annoy me in some reviews, oh and it's different authors, source is Polygon.
The whole gender/sex ideal has also been a more common practice in kotaku and gamespot recently, even in their video reviews...
It's more of a pet peeve to me and I'm not really bashing them

there are still review sources that I like to read from time to time

Eurogamer, CVG, Nowgamer and OXM - agree with at least three of them 99% of the time. Great dry sense of humour from the UK sites as an added bonus.

Lol did you see Polygon's Dragon's Crown Review? was the first and last polygon review i ever read

dont read reviews as often as i used to. i read them occassionally but i don't think there's ever been a review thats actually stopped me from purchasing a game i've been looking forward to or persuaded me to buy a game i wasn't going to buy in the 1st place. mostly because i think my taste in games is a little different than most and i'm very picky when deciding which games i pick up also if there's one thing i've learned(especially on this site) its that the way people percieve games is VERY VERY different. not that its bad to take other people's opinions into consideration but i think if you've been following the development of a game for long enough you've usually seen enough of the in game content by the time it comes out that you can use your own common sense to decide if that game's for you or not. works perfectly for me, dont think i've ever made a game purchase that i've truly regretted. if i took reviews as seriously as some do i can't even count how many awesome game's i would have missed out on (and how many crappy games i would have picked up X))

I dont use or read reviews as much as I used too, especially from big name gaming press sites or guys known for their sensationalist writing like Kotaku.

The bulk of the time I will watch 4 - 5 reviews on YouTube just from different regular guys to get a feel for it. Everyone has different tastes in games, I would probably never rate a driving game as highly as someone who enjoys that genre game.

So just one review never works.

The only time I tend to listen to reviews as well is if it's a game I am not sure about getting, if It's a game I want to get I will get it regardless of what any review says about it.

I watch IGN, Gamespot & Angry Joe on YT. & have been reading GamesMaster magazine for well over 10 years now.
I don’t let their reviews or scores judge what I play though. I just like to hear other peoples opinions & like to see the game in action.
Like on YT, I can see the game in action & decide if it’s the kind of game I would like to play.
GamesMaster tends to come out a bit late here. So I have either started or even finished the game by the time I read the review.
But sometimes I might miss a game, read the review & go oh, that looks good!

Pretty much what Ragna said. Especially about having different tastes in games from the norm.

My own ten cents. i actually, never READ reviews I couldn't bother with a "professional" wall of text about a game I know I'm going to be passionate about. I only ever bother with video reviews and take them wit a pinch of salt, really.

gameplay vids, usually suffice. Those and "Let's Plays"

Being a retro collector, watching Let's Players like Game Grumps or Continue? and Retro Reviewers like JonTron and Angry Video Game Nerd helps me find which games I would like to look for.

Otherwise, I may or may not watch a review or 2 on Youtube, but only if it's from someone's opinion that I trust. I rarely look at anything other than trailers and behind the scenes videos.

So basically, what I usually do is look at the "ads" and decide if I would like the game or not... and I can honestly say that has almost never disappointed me... I say "almost" because I actually bought WET (PS3), which is the purchase I most regret

I fairly frequently check the larger games websites (Eurogamer primarily but also The Escapist and Polygon). As it's all opinion pieces, it's more about finding a reviewer with similar tastes and personality.

Jim Sterling (now at The Escapist) may at times come off irritating as hell but his criticisms are often similar to mine. The Eurogamer group all have a similar style in reviews and I find them suitable. The Polygon team tend to have a rather strange structure that often seems to only focus on criticisms but I find it a useful guide to thing's that might irritate me in the game as well.

Blog sites and Forums can be great for detailed commentary but I find people settle on one individual aspect they enjoy/dislike and as such you need to go through a lot of posts to get a real feel for the game as a whole.

Thankfully having some disposable income these days and a decent amount of time to play, I'm more prone to picking up things that may not be critically successful as long as I enjoy the gamestyle or enjoyed previous games in the series (the 2nd hand market also helps if it's available). I am a sucker for seeing how the story of a game plays out so often I'll at least try the 1st sequel regardless of scores.