@Darkfire45 Look at their profiles. InTheZone writes "Got my Merits from reviewing games on the site. ", XCoheedX possibly got his with game walkthroughs. Probably the most frequent merit sources for many.
More likely that most of his were also from game reviews. He hasn't been active since 2008, he had most of his merits when I first came across his profile sometime in 2009, and merits have not been awarded for walkthroughs until recently, possibly with the addition of the Guide quest.
Does anyone still attempt write merit-worthy reviews or have people lost interest in doing that altogether?
People were apparently really into it in 2008. Before the comment system was replaced, I would scroll through old pages of game comments from 2008, and there would always be numerous reviews in bold text, indicating that they had been merited. If you took all the users with double-digit merit counts and divided them up by the year they joined, 2008 would probably have the most users.
In 2009, it was still a big thing, but not as many people regularly reviewed games the way they seemed to during the previous year. By 2012, most users had little interest in merits.
It's never too late to start again, though. I've been meaning to get back into the game reviewing game, but I've had trouble over the past few years becoming interested again in flash games that don't have level editors.
Game review merits are generally worthy game comments posted in Disqus on the page of whatever game you're reviewing. Walkthroughs/guides go under the Game Walkthrough sub-forum.