Yes definitely it’s a tool I use all the time! ?
Positive reviews are an important part of my decision making. To be honest however, negative reviews have a greater influence on me. If someone clearly and specifically offers evidence that a product or service was lousy for them, they get my attention.
I don't for products but, I do for services. I company I hire must have nothing but, excellent reviews.
I read the first five or six reviews to get the general gist of customer feelings, then skip further down and read a few of those.
Not the positive reviews, I look at the negatives to see if a pattern emerges in the complaints and decide from there to check the positives.
I will look at a couple of the one and two star reviews, mostly to see if they have legitimate complaints (usually they don't)