...a literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic.
Articles reporting the results of an experiment, a modeling system, a failure report, or other type of scholarly article will have an initial section that is a summary of current information, labeled as the literature review. This section will be less detailed than a stand-alone review article.
An example of a pure literature review is Review of bioretention system research and design: Past present and future.