Some places get so strapped for cash that their content isn't even content, but thinly veiled low effort ad copy. I hardly trust online review articles anymore because they mostly focus on one new product by itself vs. in the context of a field of existing alternatives and are rarely critical these days.

Yeah, it's less and less "use ads to support the content creation", it's "write content to fill the void between the ads".

And yes, review articles are a similar problem. And another indicator: if the site has "stars" in the serps, i.e. provides "aggregate rating" as microdata, it's probably shit.