I think there's something to be said for diversity of opinion: being right all the time wouldn't be nearly so rewarding if everyone else was right all the time, too. This carries over to maps and reviews as well. Not everyone wants the same thing from a deathmatch map. One map isn't going to satisfy everyone. So in the interest of diversity I'd like to offer up these reviews of Absolution][: a positive review from Blast-Radius, and a negative review from Nali City. I had intended to push my map up at ut2003hq, but the map exceeds their filesize limit.
Nali City is typified by harsh reviews and errors. The errors tend to stem from a focus on quantity rather than quality. Nali City reviewers are praised for the volume of their reviews. When Nali City reviewed the original DM-Absolution the reviewer went so far as to make things up and was wrong on several points. When this was brought up with the reviewer he admitted that he didn't have time to fully review maps and just made assumptions about what might be wrong with a map. That reviewer still reviews maps at Nali City, but thankfully was not the one to review the second map.
This reviewer seemed to actually play the map, and given that he reviews for Nali City, I'll give him kudos for that. Doubtless his peers will eventually win him over to the dark side eventually. As for score, I found his score fair. Since Nali City reviews are 99% about visuals, a 4.5 is a pretty high rating for a map designed to not provide eye candy.
Blast-Radius is a brand new site. It really hasn't been around long enough for me to have a strong opinion about it's review history. So I'll tell you what I've seen so far. Blast-Radius reviews tend to be on the generous side score-wise. The scoring is based on a strong foundation of meaningful categories: where Nali City's categories are the meaningless "Awe Score", "Build Score", and "Cast Score", Blast-Radius has categories with actual meaning like "Layout", "Lighting" and "Texturing". Further, the score for each item at Blast-Radius is discussed, so the score assigned has actual meaning.
Blast-Radius also offers actual feedback to authors. You don't get a statement like "the flow could improve" and have it left at that. The reviewer will go further to explain what about the flow needs improvement. Not only is this good for the mapper, but it's good for those considering downloading the map: they know that the comments are well thought out and based on more than just habitually writing the same catch phrases for all reviews or just the malaise of the day.
As for the score received at Blast-Radius, I felt it was probably a bit high. I would have awarded a 9 at most for item placement, and brought the Ambiance score down another two points because the map just didn't really have a theme to speak of.
