Abstract Nowadays the contribution of smart load technologies to power system frequency regulation is spurred due to the increasing penetration of renewable energy resources. This paper presents a comprehensive and up-to-date critical review on different decentralized load control strategies. This includes a joint literature- as well as simulation-based investigation in order to scrutinize different decentralized frequency-based load modulation strategies through organizing a taxonomy table and performing different simulation scenarios. Furthermore, the effectiveness of different gain tuning procedures in each control action are scrutinized and compared in terms of frequency nadir and steady state error. The detailed simulation is performed using SimPowerSystem (SPS) toolbox, in phasor mode, on IEEE 39-bus New England test system.