For the record: This is not anything "groundbreaking" or "terribly controversial", but it is disturbing, as this notion amongst big time reviews has been cropping up more and more with recent titles. Speaking to MTV’s Stephen Totilo, several "anonymous" (for good reason) press members from print outlets have apparently outed Konami and their strict "no talk" policies for Metal Gear Solid 4 reviews.

According to sources, they were told by Konami themselves to deliberately not mention many [non-spoiler related] items in their coverage, including the length of the game’s cutscene’s and the mandatory install time and space required.

I’ve been told by two gaming media sources who asked to
remain anonymous that Konami representatives had been asking print
reviewers to keep some technical details out of their reviews, namely
the length of the game’s cut-scenes and the size of the game’s
installation on the PlayStation 3.

Such details wouldn’t have been plot spoilers, but perhaps the publisher was concerned that they would be viewed as negatives?

Konami representatives declined to comment to me about any of this, as did editors of a few major video game magazines.

Very odd, if true, and there’s no doubt that is, in some form. Considering that word about the game’s supposedly ridiculous cutscene length (I have watched the entire Epilogue, and it’s LONG) and large hard drive space requirements have leaked, what’s the big deal? It’s not going to stopper MGS fans from taking the plunge, right? Not at all, but it might, according to Kotaku, scare away investors. Interesting developments on the game journalism front, but if this pans out as true, these publishers really are making our jobs a lot harder than they should be.