State of reviews feature in XBox app

Sean Flemming · Apr 10, 2025

I appreciate the ways that the Xbox PC app has evolved over the years; it looks and feels a lot better than it did, and I know that takes a lot of work.

Why has the reviews feature not been updated to address major issues, though?

If I am curious about a game that is also on steam, I will 100% of the time look at steam reviews before deciding whether to download or purchase it or not. This is because the reviews on the xbox app are almost always useless. I was curious about this today and looked over a handful of games and their posted reviews.

There is no indication of how long someone played the game at the time they left the review.
There is no indication whether they played the game on PC, Series S or Series X hardware.
There is no indication as to whether they have ever even downloaded and installed the game, let alone played it! I tested this by leaving a review on COD: Black Ops 6. A gamepass title that I have never installed or played.

I realize that certain review-related features might be difficult to implement, but would imagine that it would be pretty important to be able to prevent someone from leaving a review if they have not played a game before. This would save a lot of time for the staff that has to go over flagged comments and spam, it would automatically make the review score as a whole more of an accurate assessment. And it would limit the effects of review bombing. The racist comments left on South of Midnight have been pretty awful, and no wonder there are so many of them, because you don't even have to bother installing the game to leave a hateful comment or two about it.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this is the most appropriate place for this feedback, but felt the need to leave it somewhere on the support side. Because in the more egregious examples of this stuff, I think it would be more helpful if there just wasn't a review section or score on the xbox app at all. I feel bad for any developer who makes the mistake of wandering in there and seeing some of what is posted there.

:)

SwordofWhedon

If you have the game through gamepass you own it as far as the review system is concerned

You must own the game digitally to review it.

Sean Flemming

By 'have it through gamepass', you mean that at some point, I would have had to click the download button on that game's store page and had it be listed in my library, correct? That's what I was confused about, because the game that I successfully posted a review for is not in my library and I have never interacted with it in any way via Microsoft, be it on PC Gamepass, through the console, or website.

KF5xHellaRanzz

"Currently, the Featured section is filled with tutorials for the Xbox One"

www.techradar.com/.../4

I found that statement on a website, and i think that my problem is not a problem at all.

I think that everyones xbox one has these tutorials on their featured, and i am very sorry for wasting your time.

Assuming that what i have stated above is true.

IAmProjectAlice

But Ebay is not a game review site, and people who review games dont have to pay for the games that they get. But as long it is a legit copy, the poster should be fine. He will have to understand that there maybe certain features of the game that will not
be available, like the multiplayer and states will be reset when the game is released.

PalmettoBling

They don't have those features at a system level for the 360. There are some features like that you can see in the Xbox app on mobile and Windows 10 for Xbox One. It would have to be included in the game by the developer for an in game timer.

The year in review statistics was marketing that pulled out from the private data they have and is not generally available.

State of reviews feature in XBox app