Seeing Past Shortcomings In Lords of Shadow

Technical gripes like this are definitely a valid part of the review process. They take away from the enjoyability and immersion of the game. Frame rate stutters, wayward cameras, and input lag can all lead to frustrating situations. Technical prowess is part of the medium they have chosen to use to deliver their product. I get particularly annoyed at sloppy port jobs.

It depends on the sort of snafu and how often it comes up. Voice out of sync with video during cutscenes, a game freezing up, vital items disappearing from an inventory or an event not triggered when it should have could all be deal breakers, but a bit of slowdown here and there or an occasional bad camera angle are not that bad.
I'm looking forward to this review, please include how long it takes to complete the game (I'm hoping for at least 15 hours) and most importantly if it "feels" like a Castlevania game. I loved Curse of Darkness and the N64 games (start your bashing) cause, well, they felt like Castlevania games while Lament of Innocence just did not have that Castlevania vibe. So maybe you can point out what game in the series it resembles the most.

I think reviewers far too often let games get away with having glaring technical problems. Much like how a renowned marathon runner with a compount leg fracture cannot even run as well as an asthmatic fat kid, an otherwise great game is completely worthless when its technical performance is poor, or unreliable. Example: Empire: Total War,

Technical snags like all the random crashes in Fallout 3. a game with a HUGE open world where it's gonna be damn hard to test for everything. A game I still love but know some people hate for all the crashes. Lord of Shadows being technically flawed? With a more restricted game world and hiccups/issues that are much easier to catch in testing should be penalized, if they wanna send out an unpolished product they should feel the sting.

If it doesn't affect the gameplay, it shouldn't significantly affect the grade. You don't want to come off sounding like a graphics whore.

On the other hand, you need to be honest and at least acknowledge the game's technical shortcomings.

I would say, for example, if it's an "A-" game and it has technical issues, it should be dropped at least half a letter to "B+". More than that if it actually hinders the gameplay in any way.

For me, all the little technicalities only usually come into play during my second time through a game. Usually, if I've gone to the effort of getting the game home and putting it into my console, I'm at the very least going to play it through once, and I'll probably enjoy it, cause I'm just an appreciative nerd like that. The annoying sh*t it all the more apparent the second time around though, when you know the game, and how to play, what to do, yada yada yada, that when the little glitches and such will piss me off and cause the game to sit on the shelf amongst all the others, doing little more than collecting dust.

If it effects the experience enough for you to mention it then it should absolutely be addressed in a review. It doesnt neccessarily have to change the grade unless its a glaring mistake that would frustrate the player at some point.

I love Mirror's Edge despite it's horrible combat, gun aiming, and AI. It's still damn fun and when it's good, it's gooooooood.

@mr-adriano: I ALSO love Mirror's Edge. Fuck, they should make another one of those.