Reviews are always subjective, they are written by human beings
And just because another game might have higher polycounts or better textures doesn't mean that people aren't going to prefer the "lesser" one. Maybe they rated the graphics as 9.5 because of the frame rate or the environments rather than the raw appearance of the car models or textures. You never know what's going through people's minds when they judge something.
You have to remember that hardcore sims like LFS and iRacing are still a serious niche market, and most people - particularly console gamers - aren't going to know anything about them. So why should a reviewer consider that tiny fraction of the population in a review when nobody else will care? It's a waste of time.
Being pedantic just because you happen to know a lot about that area is silly. In the same way that a veteran soldier won't slag off Arma or Op Flashpoint because despite the "sim" name it's still not actually like real war. Or a guitar virtuoso mocking rhythm games because it's not actually like playing a real instrument. It's accepted that a simulation of any kind is a software alternative, not a 100% accurate recreation.
Only hardcore geeks are going to sit down and compare (for example) the realism of the clutch across a load of games. Hell, even I don't care that much, and I'm a fan of the genre. Fun has to be the primary goal.