With the rapid developments of virtualization techniques, cloud data centers have had enabled cost effective, flexible, and customizable deployments of applications in virtualized infrastructure. Virtual machine placement problem is a problem of paramount importance to the design of cloud data centers. It aims to assign each virtual machine to a server in the cloud environment. Typically, the problem involves complex relations and multiple design factors as well as local policies that govern the assignment decisions. It also involves different parties including cloud administrators and customers that we need to consider their preferences while opting for a solution. Thus, it is significant to not only return an optimized solution to the underlying placement problem but also a solution that reflects the given preferences of these parties. In this paper, we provide a detailed review on the role of preferences in the current literature of the virtual machine placement problem. We further discuss some challenges and identify possible research opportunities to better incorporate preferences within the problem.