I'm gonna require more of a definition on "weaker form of criticism" as I'm drawing a blank there.
What would make a form of criticism "weaker" ?
Weaker is open-ended, depending on the individual. "It's worse" to whatever extent, but not necessarily "wrong" or "bad", hence why I used the term weaker. An example could be something like focusing on a part of a game too much or too little. This judgment call can extend to an entire methodology, thus a "form of criticism".
I think constructive criticism of anything is always welcome. If we're talking about Gies' Bayonetta article, I think readers who disagree with his take should feel free to offer their rebuttal. You could attack it from many angles, and so long as you are justifying your arguments, I think it's fine. Maybe your opinion is "I think she's a strong female character and here are my reasons." Maybe your opinion is "Yeah, some of the sexualization may seem gratuitous, but I'm okay with that because of these reasons." Maybe you agree that her design is problematic, but you think "the gameplay is a blast to play and the presentation grows on you over time."
There are even more opinions out there than I accounted for. The short of it is that all are welcome. What would we like to see less of? "I don't want social justice crap in my reviews!" This isn't constructive, and people are often wildly off the mark anyway in terms of a reviewers responsibility in reviewing a game. And by that, I simply mean that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to writing a review of games, or any piece of entertainment. That doesn't mean that every opinion is equally as valid as any other opinion. It can surely be argued that some people present their arguments better than others. But it's not constructive to entirely deride something just because you disagree with one facet of their perspective.
Can't say I disagree with anything you've said. I feel it is very unfortunate how poor the level of discourse can be among enthusiasts, even if I like the ideas they are trying to say, as we've often seen in review threads (and this is of course in no way limited to a specific type of criticism in those reviews). That said, I think the response to their inarticulate, if not incendiary, opinions can be too simplistic, like "why do you even care what a review says?", which makes me wonder what is considered acceptable, particularly in respect to what's an acceptable way to criticize games (the initial argument) as a guideline.
Personally, individual reviews are less important to me than the establishing of ideals on a wider scale, questions along the lines of "what is art in context of videogames? or "What does it mean to 'elevate' the medium?". "Maturity", "trash", "exploitation", "culture", etc. To me, that's all about challenging forms of criticism (the norms and virtues they create) and I find it very appealing, if not a necessity, to engage (reviews are merely the execution of these ideals). To be optimistic about who I'm talking about, I think when someone sees a review like Gies's, or even just the points he made or how he made them, they might feel the same way, only to have no real concept on how to engage that (for example, their appeal for "objectivity" to me appears more of a misstep than a dead end, the subjective nature of reality doesn't really undo what they are really trying to get at; objectivity often sounds more like a call for expertise or a set of priorities that they feel is much more relevant for the experience the medium provides.).
In any case, I do think that what is considered "constructive" can fluctuate based on the contention at play. So, this is also why I invoked game criticism. Someone says this game has problematic elements, someone then says that review has problematic elements. I think it's very easy to frame either as trying to extinguish their target even when both are written fairly neutrally or imply little in the way of conclusions ("This review sucks!" is a lame contribution, but not exactly calling for its censorship). As such, you can only be so "welcoming", especially when people are butting heads on
how to talk about games (including the notion that all reviews are equally valuable).
