The beauty of Yelp is that you don't have to read them! The power is in the fact that reviews are aggregated ("..and the fish is amazing!") and that you can search within them. Sometimes I wanna search "oysters" to see if their oysters are any good. Let's say out of 100 reviews one mentions oysters - at least now I have an idea what to expect about oysters, whereas in Foursquare this may not have even been documented due to the char limit.
Except that that aggregated data frequently aggregate useless info into a very reductive score. If I go to a $ restaurant, I don't value a poor review which bases itself on poor service. If I'm paying $10 a plate, I can handle almost any level of service if the food is good.
It's a sliding scale though, at $$$$ I would rate the service related review more highly.
I would LOVE if yelp let people rate reviews, as well as restaurants. Useful reviews deserver more weight than ones that say, "I hated it, and didn't leave a tip because the waiter was ..."
They do let you rate reviews which will filter upwards, but the "power users" always win out. The problem is the power users are the ones who write the long winded reviews.
