Reviews are live! Links: Opencritic, Metacritic. Selected outlets:

• Destructoid: 10/10: "I wasn’t sure if it could be done, but Bethesda has managed to raise the bar for sandbox games even higher."

• Game Informer: 8.5/10: "Go in with the expectation that it will take some time to find your footing in such a vast gameplay space, and there’s a universe well worth discovering here."

• GamesRadar: 5/5: "With this kind of freedom, avoiding the main mission is the main mission."

• IGN: 7/10: "Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist."

• PC Gamer: 75/100: "Starfield shares plenty of DNA with Skyrim and Fallout 4, but ultimately falls short of both."

• PCGamesN: 7/10: "a true behemoth of an RPG ... however, its massive scope pushes its formula to the absolute limit and the cracks begin to show"

• Polygon: "In trying to do everything, Starfield obfuscates its most compelling mysteries."

• VG247: 4/5: "Starfield’s grandiose scope sets the scene for a few under-developed ideas in an otherwise thoughtful, muddy take on the sci-fi genre."

• VGC: 5/5: "Starfield is the ultimate Bethesda game."

• VideoGamer: 9/10: "Starfield is the enchantment and wonder of space bottled and fleshed out into something grand and ambitious, thoughtful and attentive"

Interesting split of breathless 9s and 10s with a few more measured 7s and 8s that seem to agree it's too big. No drastic surprises here, then - biting off more than is chewable would be the problem I would've predicted. Are you going to pick it up, are you not, and did these reviews affect that decision?