Would you say the same about movie, music, or book reviews? Should they also be about informing the reader on whether or not the writer believes the piece of entertainment in question is worth their time/money? Because, with the exception of exceedingly terrible content, they rarely are.
A proper review that discusses, in a novel and interesting way, the title in context with others in its medium is going to be drastically more stimulating and engaging, and it's going to have a recommendation implicit in it simply by virtue of the level of the writer's enthusiasm in discussing it. It's a hell of a lot harder to write something like that than it is to give a "This but this, this but this, this but this, conclusion" pros-and-cons list and an arbitrary number, but the end result is a better read and a review that's still relevant even after everyone has played the game.
I'd argue that games are fundamentally different from movies, music and books. Games have technical aspects to consider. Online connectivity, framerate, features like VOIP, AI etc. If these things are flawed, regardless of the content a game should be given a low score.
Likewise, games also costs significantly more. $60, plus season pass/DLC etc is a far cry from the $15 it takes for a movie ticket, or $20 for a book/cd. More people care about knowing if a game is worth buying than for movies/music/books, which is why those reviews focus on content rather than value.
I'm not saying you can't provide anecdotes in a review to justify why certain features are good, or why they are bad. I'd make a comparison to table top gaming. I don't care about the reviewers experience with D&D, I just want to know if the new release is worth it. If an ancedote helps me imagine situations where certain features of the game are fun, then by all means. Otherwise, I just want an estimation of whether or not it is worth the cost of admission.
It's telling that I can honestly say I have never read a review of a book/movie/album until after I had already experienced them and wanted to see what others thought. Word of mouth recommendations are more than sufficient for those mediums.
With games the most valuable part is not what the writer thinks of the game. It's the summation of features and highlighting of problems that are most useful to me. It's the same with user reviews, all I need is a very quick analysis of value and performance and I'll decide for myself. I don't really care for reviews that gloss over the actual content/performance of a game to focus on the one or two thematic issues the writer had with it. (Like Polygon's Bayonetta 2 review for example, or Carolyn Petit's GTA V review on Gamespot last year.)
The current state of video game reviews is dominated by laziness and boilerplate stock-standard writing. I don't think it's unfair to expect more from people who do this sort of thing for a living.
That's true, and why I think dedicated reviews writers are a thing of the past. Gamespot fired most of their staff earlier this year and you can bet such cuts are coming to all the other sites eventually. Video is infinitely more important in todays environment than written content.
As I said though, more long form analysis is great. But a review isn't really a great environment for it.