Colorcrayons wrote: When I got into this in earnest as a passtime for my GF and I, I could have really used this type of distinction. Once you buy one stinker without doing research that could potentially ruin your chances of future purchases (I am looking at you, Tiki Mountain) then it is nearly as much of a turn off to read dozens of reviews for games that are confusing as fuck to a newb. They dont care how well this compares to Puerto Rico or Gric, they want to know if they buy it, that they may enjoy it given the parameters of their own taste and what they are willing to explore.
This is/was one of my pet peeves as well. Just making analogies to games I haven't played may actually be less useful than saying nothing.
On topic. I do not agree with the OP. Wil Wheaton's show grows the hobby, and most of the other stuff probably can't hurt. I don't care if Tom threw Hawaii off a building once, I thought it was boring before I saw the video.