A couple things about this bug me:

As you pointed out, the /. story was submitted by the article's author, but that was obfuscated in the summary. Alarm bells are ringing Willie.

He goes out of his way to conduct this article like a scientific review, but at the heart of it, it's just an opinion piece.

Take this article he deemed sexist: http://www.joystiq.com/2010/10/05/heres-where-cammie-dunaway-literally-went/ It's a short post with nothing but facts and a Lord of the Flies reference. It's not sexist in any way, but when confronted by the post's author, Jackmovich/SSDNINJA said it had "Implied or condescending remarks about women". If Cammie Dunaway had been a man, I highly doubt Jackmovich would have deemed that article sexist, which, in itself, is sexist. If that's the way he's collecting his data, this whole thing is just a farce designed to pull page views. Looks like it worked.

I'm not saying gaming journalism isn't without faults, but this feels like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

While the gameplay got repetitive, (I haven't played far enough into the game yet for that to be true for me, though I can understand your view) the game controlled well and featured good gameplay mechanics. The gameplay in Manhunt aimed to capture a slow stealthly pace and did that very well. Lack of creative level design doesn't mean the gameplay wasn't solid.

I haven't noticed the invisible barriers you mentioned for enemies, but I agree those are always lame.

I think the sneaking aspect of Manhunt mixed in with the running/gunning aspect of GTA would make for a much more rounded gameplay experience while on foot.