haha I'm surprised more of you guys aren't upset about this. Exclusive reviews help two groups of people: publishers and the outlets that run them. The one group they don't help is the group we're here to serve: readers. It's super gross.
Would you have rejected an early Bioshock Infinite review if it had been offered?
Did you reject a chance to post an early review?
Let's not get this twisted, we all have issues with things like this. But we are told repeatedly there's no major impropriety at all going on between gaming sites and publishers.
When we have more tangible evidence, be it free flight/games/consoles, we're repeatedly told that journalists are able to maintain their integrity.
Is the only issue the fact IGN were picked over them or is there a hint that IGN did something untoward to secure it.