That does not seem to be the case as the reviewer puts it. Even when he was looking at his iPhone X he could not always get it unlocked: "There have been times when, despite a clear view of my face, the iPhone X has ghosted me. (Apple tells me that perhaps I wasn’t making what the iPhone X considers eye contact.)"
It explicitly will not unlock by default unless you are looking at the phone (or have disabled the "attention detection" feature), it detects the direction of your eyes presumably to prevent someone from surreptitiously pointing your phone at your face to unlock it while you are focusing elsewhere.
> By default, Face ID requires eye contact in order to work, but Federighi says you can disable the “attention detection” feature and Face ID will work whether you look directly at it or not.
neither is a good idea but Apple recently pushed out lockouts for Do not disturb while driving. I have not tried this feature and it defaults to off. So how well it works, well it won't stop me from using the phone as it appears to be not allowing the phone to interrupt me.