The Escapist really is a sad story. Back when it started in PDF form in 2005, it was intended to be a high-brow gaming magazine with no news or reviews, just in-depth articles about trends in games. This was compromised when they started doing just those other things, but for a long time they at least didn't include numeric scores in reviews like everyone else (until they compromised on that).

And for a long time even after it became a website, they had a weekly magazine with some really good articles. But that gradually got pushed further and further out-of-focus in favour of more videos until they basically stopped doing it entirely. And then of course they lost most of the worthwhile video series and now it's just a bland gaming press site with Yahtzee.