Just looking at some of the immaturity in some people's posts on Jeff's Kane & Lynch 2 impressions, I kinda feel bad for the franchise, those people working hard to correct their mistakes with the last game, and the GB community.
 
I have a few feelings: firstly, if anyone really, genuinely has the right to be pissed of with the franchise, it's Jeff. Judging by his impressions of the game, he's acting as a complete and utter professional, and viewing the game for exactly what it is: the sequel to Kane & Lynch 2.
 
None of us can propose to know the full details of Jeff's dismissal from GameSpot, nor should we really hold IO Interactive responsible. One would imagine that the whole affair revolved around two parties; presumably Eidos' marketing team, and Gamespot's marketing/HR team.
 
Reading about Kane & Lynch 2 in various publications, it seems like IO are having to deal with the "scandal" before they even talk about their game, which doesn't seem fair. In fact, the actual people tasked with developing the game probably have TAKEN on board Jeff's criticism of the first to make this sequel better.
 
The fact is, it sounds like Eidos/Square Enix/IO Interactive really want to extend a hand to GiantBomb, and share their game with him; why else would they have visited the GB studios to show the game? Likewise, Jeff seems willing to report the game in a fair and justified manner. I think it shows great levels of professionalism on both sides, and it's really sad to see comments such as, "Jeff should give this a 1 star," etc pop up around the boards. Heck, even hearing Shane Satterfield talk about how he "can't wait for Jeff's review" on Invisible Walls saddened me.
 
Kane & Lynch 2 might be great, it might be terrible. Who knows? The point is, shouldn't we move on and accept it for what it is? Please let's grow up and show that the GiantBomb community is more mature than ripping into someones hard work just for the purpose of saying.
 
In a round-about way, I for one am thankful for Kane & Lynch. As an occassional reader of GameSpot, I never got involved with the community, etc; something I feel a part of here.
 
I'm not trying to brush-off what happened to Jeff, I'm just saying, perhaps we should all take a leaf out of his book and move on, because at the end of the day, it's not the fault of a particular brand, but the fault of a few suits we'll probably never be aware of.
 
Hopefully I don't come across as too whiney, it's not my intention.
 
EDIT: I hate that you can't correct titles. :(

I completely agree, man. It's pretty pathetic, and I imagine pretty annoying from a business perspective for Jeff and Giant Bomb as a whole.

I'm glad some people are with me. What I wanted to mention in my original post but forgot was that the game actually looks rather interesting to boot. Of course the jury's still out, I don't think anyone at IO would mind that at all; but the jury should be out about the quality of the game, not business related things that happened in the past and are now sorta, y'know, I don't want to say irrelevent because that seems a bit strong but, y'know what I mean.

Yeah, I don't really even care about the 'thing' that happened a few years back, I just want to play Kane & Lynch 2, because it seems very much improved from its predecessor.

Nah i agree with you it seems as if the people that have the most right to comment on the 'controversy'  - Jeff and IO/Eidos  - are focusing sheerly on what needs to be focused on, A professional and fair stream of information, and a (hopefully) vastly improved game. 
 
Everyone else seems intent on throwing  their conspiracy theories and opinions on how this is gonna suck just cos!

Relax man its the internet, sheesh. 
 
I'm sure your intentions are pure but it's going to happen whether you like it or not.  Some jokes will be made, some "boycott's" will be started.  The game will get released, time will pass, and it will be long forgotten.

At the end of the day, people don't realize that it wasn't IO who said 'fire this guy because he gave our game a bad review', it was either Gamespot PR realizing how bad things looked with all the K&L ads on the site, and a mediocre review score from said site advertising said game as a must-buy, or it was someone on the Eidos side realizing that they basically wasted money advertising on a website where the reviewer told people that the game isn't worth the price of admission.
 
Jeff let it go because it was in his best interests, had he gone all SCANDALOUS with this, he probably wouldn't be able to hold down a job anywhere in this industry. I'm glad to see he's being professional about the whole thing, it's sad to see that the people who respect him don't respect his decision to not discuss it anymore.

For the record. I liked the first one. Even though everyone hates it because Jeff supposedly got fired for it.

Agreed.  Good post.  Being a big fan of Io and Giant Bomb I am disappointed by all the focus on that incident too.  The thing is we have no evidence it went beyond CNet really... maybe to Eidos but Io had nothing to do with it.

Everybody had better stop bumping this thread, then. 
 
Oops.

I feel bad for the developers, who had nothing to do with this whole business, and just saw their game take a side-step to the controversy surrouding it that had nothing to do with the game itself. But I liked the first game, and accepted it as what it was-an unfinished game with a lot of potential.

Now with new ownership and a lot more time, hopefully IO Interactive will silence the doubters this time.

Great post. No-one knows the details around Jeffs departure from Gamespot, so it's completely unnecessary to throw blame all around. 

Not as pathetic as the people getting all snooty about it and acting like joking about this is the same as joking about the holocaust or something.  Nobody is going to pat you on the back.
 
Of course Jeff and the publisher are going to be professional about it, how else could they possibly act that wouldn't make them look ridiculous?  
 
You make a fair point about the nonsense overshadowing the game itself, but I suspect if people stopped trying to act all super serious and sombre about it, everybody else (here at least) would be all joked out by the time the game actually ships.  I still don't know if Jeff should review it though, that will definitely overshadow the game and he has about a 0% chance of pleasing people whatever he ends up saying about it anyway.  When it inevitably ends up needing to be called out for being yet another mediocre Gears rip-off, I'm sure Ryan will be up to the task.

I do agree, and even if I didn't it doesn't change that all of the "LOL JEFF WILL BE FIRED FOR REVIEWING THIS" jokes aren't funny.

I agree. People that say "Jeff is going to hate this game because it's Kane and Lynch" are complete babies who need to get over themselves.

" Not as pathetic as the people getting all snooty about it and acting like joking about this is the same as joking about the holocaust or something.  Nobody is going to pat you on the back.  Of course Jeff and the publisher are going to be professional about it, how else could they possibly act that wouldn't make them look ridiculous?    You make a fair point about the nonsense overshadowing the game itself, but I suspect if people stopped trying to act all super serious and sombre about it, everybody else (here at least) would be all joked out by the time the game actually ships.  I still don't know if Jeff should review it though, that will definitely overshadow the game and he has about a 0% chance of pleasing people whatever he ends up saying about it anyway.  When it inevitably ends up needing to be called out for being yet another mediocre Gears rip-off, I'm sure Ryan will be up to the task. "

"Heck, even hearing Shane Satterfield talk about how he "can't wait for Jeff's review" on Invisible Walls saddened me. "

" @Jimbo said:

" Not as pathetic as the people getting all snooty about it and acting like joking about this is the same as joking about the holocaust or something.  Nobody is going to pat you on the back.  Of course Jeff and the publisher are going to be professional about it, how else could they possibly act that wouldn't make them look ridiculous?    You make a fair point about the nonsense overshadowing the game itself, but I suspect if people stopped trying to act all super serious and sombre about it, everybody else (here at least) would be all joked out by the time the game actually ships.  I still don't know if Jeff should review it though, that will definitely overshadow the game and he has about a 0% chance of pleasing people whatever he ends up saying about it anyway.  When it inevitably ends up needing to be called out for being yet another mediocre Gears rip-off, I'm sure Ryan will be up to the task. "

My thoughts exactly. Honestly I'd rather deal with an immature Giant Bomb community than an elitist one, but I don't really think the former is the case either. If the Giant Bomb community doesn't care to give a sequel to what was by all accounts a mediocre game the time of day, so be it. Doesn't make us bad people. "

I really don't know what the big deal is. I think we actually have to thank Eidos...I mean   Square Enix because without them we would not have GB. 

If it wasn't for Kane and Lynch... we might not be here. So I'm going to celebrate the release of Kane and Lynch 2. = )

"@get2sammyb said:

"Heck, even hearing Shane Satterfield talk about how he "can't wait for Jeff's review" on Invisible Walls saddened me. "

Yeah, that really pissed me off.  Though i totally agree with you, whenever someone mentions Kane & Lynch somebody screams "JEFF!", which sucks. To be honest, the new one looks very cool, and it's a shame because people start ignoring the actual game and only thinks of the stuff around the first one. "

Expecting maturity on any open internet forum is a pipe dream.

People will never stop talking about it.  The only thing you can control is you not talking about it.

" Expecting maturity on any open internet forum is a pipe dream. "

A man on the internet getting fired is not a big deal to me.  Jeff is not my husband.  Anyone (who doesn't personally know the guy) who holds a "grudge" over that situation is a moron IMO.  
 
Also, If I was the one calling the shots at Gamespot (which is a hypothetical world where I have lots of money and 12 wives) and if a new guy did that review instead of Jeff, I would have fired him. 

I never really believed Jeff's departure from GameSpot was directly because of Kane and Lynch anyway. :P

The whole Kane and Lynch situation sucks for all involved, it suck for Jeff, it sucks for Gamespot and it sucks for Eidos. That being said, what good does it do to ignore the situation. While Shae Shatterfield saying he can't wait for Jeff's Kane and Lynch 2 review is funny, it also holds a lot of truth. I'm sure people are working really hard around the clock on all fronts, Gamespot included, to make sure that Kane and Lynch 2 is a non issue in this industry. It is by far the most intresting thing about it, and all parties know this, even the Giant Bomb coverage of it is sprinkled with "nudge nudge" refrences to the incident.

To sum it up: It's sucks the scandal happened but ignoring it, won't do anyone any good. What's done is done, and the game itself actually has a higher profile now than it would otherwise.

While I agree that comments such as that are unnecessary, I think that the whole reason for being there is simply that no one really knows what happens. And until people do, there will always be those who act in immature ways because they don't. I would personally love to know exactly what happened and why, but it's nothing that bothers me much.

Such an informed essay, with such a glaring typo in the title. 
 
I imagine Jeff sees this issue even more clearly than we do.  Being a critic of integrity, the last thing he desires is for politics - even if justified - to prevent a good game from finding success.  It will, however, only be worse from here onwards.  Almost everyone on GiantBomb is here, in part or in whole, in protest to Jeff's termination at GameSpot.