You make it sound like they didn’t even buy and run the game, but that’s not accurate.

> While the game encourages you to master the reasonably simple controls of its range of perfectly crafted engines, you can also just set it to play itself and then take over the free camera as it does.

That seems like a perfectly valid way to experience the game to me.

The author is "not exactly a train enthusiast" as they say, and nor are the vast majority of the audience . Yet the article presents the game in a way that sounds appealing to such an audience, potentially exposing it to more people than just the train fan niche. I think that alone makes it better than "terrible"

Yeah, it’s a classic bystander’s assessment.

The job of a games journalists isn't to play games or explain games to gamers. It's to explain the social context of a game to a general audience.

If you want a review service or consumer guide then pay for it.

All journalism is terrible these days. They just want a catchy headline for the ad view and nothing else matters, including whether the headline is true or not.

>like the journo didn't even play the game

That is industry standard