Yes I agree, IGN became horrific which is when I and probably 80% of the existing readers bailed from there. Unfortunately some game publishers provide patch downloads via them which is a whole new kind of horror. Unfortunately excessive advertising appears to be par for the course on most gaming sites these days. Thank god for Ad Mucher.
Talking Nintendo DS for a moment, I'd honestly love a frank justification for purchasing the DS, so if vrgrll owns one I'd be interested in hearing her thoughts. To me it looks like a 70's "game a watch" system, it lacks the power of the PSP, the compactness of the SP and I'm yet to remain convinced that any games effectively use the second touch-screen, or ever will.
At the same time I love my Nintendo SP dearly (working my way through Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age during any free moment this Christmas) so probably wouldn't take that much convincing to make me buy a DS for the price, though the pet simulator that massively boosted sales this Christmas won't be it.