I am familiar with a lot of game developer forums, but I'd assume this is much less likely to attract more casual commentators. I also fear that feedback from a gamer's perspective would often be tainted by their game dev perspective.

For example, if I were making a RTS game and wanted to get feedback from "The RTS gamers" where would I go? Is there a general idea of what type of website or forum to go to? Do you go to specific game websites, to try to "steal" attention? Would this not equate to spam or inappropriate posting? What is considered appropriate and inappropriate?

I am not asking for specifics. I am asking how one "starts a community", or how one "gets feedback from gamers" without resorting to spamming forums or 'advertising' just to see what sticks. What TYPE OF PLACE does one go? Are there already sites designed for this purpose?

I tried going to what was once a very popular forum for feedback from what I believed was a niche hardcore group of gamers in the genre, but its popularity seemed to have died significantly; Leaving only trolls and very young teenagers. The resulting feedback was quite disappointing, mainly for how little feedback it resulted. Many years ago, feedback would flood in by the hundreds so quickly.

Without this website, I am at a loss as to where to go to see what people think of ideas, gather feedback from a gamer's perspective (not a developer's perspective), or where to pull from to start my own site's forum. I am out of ideas of what to do, short of going to various game forums to post in the off-topic sections there.