Uh, it's not necessarily a level playing field. Some of the bookings may have been through "blind" sites like Priceline or Hotwire.

Here's a common scenario: Crowded hotel market with many choices, like Orlando or Las Vegas. Hotel A at 2 stars plays it straight and takes bids at $40 with no mandatory surcharges. Hotel B at 2 stars, though, invents a mandatory resort fee (I've seen even 1-star places that charge these!) at $10 and starts taking bids at $35.

Well, the $35 is really $45 and, of course, Hotel B will scoop up all the business and leave the honest operator high and dry, and also cause an unhappy customer who'll feel cheated by that sleight-of-hand.

Of course Priceline and Hotwire have generic CYA language about the possibility of the resort fee (or energy surcharge, or whatever they invent next) cost, but that doesn't change the fact that they're rewarding the bad actors through their system and punishing the honest ones, and customers will hold both the booking site and the hotel responsible.

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As for the question in general (outside this particular issue), I think a lot has to do with expectations. I've used Trip Advisor a lot and have posted some, and there are many times you'll see reviews tugging in opposite directions and making it hard to get a clear sense. You have to dig through the verbatims for a factual case. Many reviews are too heavy with adjectives (filthy!) that may have different thresholds for different people. It's much more helpful to be more descriptive about why and not to rely on the adjectives.

There's also the real possibility that reviewers paid very different rates and had different expectations because of that. Someone getting a 3-star via Priceline at $50 (assuming no mandatory-surcharge games) might be more forgiving of a pool being shut down for a day of the stay than someone paying $100 via a conventional site.