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Personally I'd be equally suspicious against games that have scores of one-eyed, fan-boy blurbs with nothing but praise for the mud, as I am against those that disallow all reviews.
My theory about the first category is that the owners reward their players for writing those useless 'reviews'. Which of course is just as lame as rewarding them to click the vote button.
My theory about the second category is that the owners are either paranoid or very hardhanded in handling player conflicts, and that there is no way for the players to vent their frustrations within the game without being punished.
All muds have problem players and disgruntled players, but I wouldn't label those as 'psychos', and most of them don't run off to troll discussion boards and write negative reviews either. In the cases where they do, there has to be a reason.
GuruPlayer mentioned another factor; pay-for-perks. Obviously this system attracts a lot of people, because it offers a way to become powerful without having to be a skilled player. But the system also mainly attracts the type of players that are most likely to become a problem; the ones that cannot tend for themselves and want everything handed down to them the easy way. And if the ones that write bad reviews are the disgruntled ones, there is of course more to be dissatisfied with in that type of Mud. Either they are upset because they don't think they are getting their money's worth, or they are upset because other players pay a lot more and get ahead of them. This type of disgruntled players doesn't exist in the muds that don't use pay-for-perks system.
If I was looking for a new mud to play, I'd look for one with few, but balanced review, where both good and bad sides were discussed, and where the owners were confident enough about the standard of their game to not feel compelled to block out any hint of criticism. The best kind would of course be where the owners take the criticism to heart, and try to do something about the problems.
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