This "article" is BS. The average rating for Dream Heights on iTunes (at the time of my writing this) is above 4.5/5 stars. Hardly the overwhelming negative response this article claims.
Proof: http://db.tt/whiVaG0t
Do other apps do this?
However, the default iTunes sort method will still manage to do some damage. If I recall correctly, iTunes sorts reviews mostly by how many people found it helpful. Additionally, this is as an absolute value, not a percentage (so 8 of 65 finding helpful will be above one that 7 of 7 found helpful). The result is if you go to the App Store page, the reviews you are shown by default -- overall rating aside -- are all heavily-upvoted one-star reviews.
The question that's left is how much of a material effect the one-star reviews being shown by default are having on the game's sales. However, even if there is no material effect, that's probably not a black mark Zynga wants visible even if it's not affecting sales much (or at all).
The "Whose Expression is it Anyways?" article on Gamasutra (link: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/TommyWu/20120216/9455/Whose_E...) I think is a good discussion on the topic. Using that article's terms, Dream Heights may only be the "legal distance" from Tiny Tower's design, instead of the "classy distance".