User blog comment:LilyheartsLightning/Metacritic Effect/@comment-3581090-20130104220534/@comment-3581090-20130109162254

Indeed. Comparison for the sake of clarity makes sense, to me, and is kind of unavoidable if you are trying to give someone an idea of what something is like. It's when, like the anonymous user said, the review becomes a qualitative comparison of "it's not as good as X, therefore it is not a good game" that comparisons become unhelpful. (Like professional movie reviewers who gauge a movie based on how it stacks up to the history of film or instead of whether or not it's entertaining.)