If this wasn't a Final Fantasy game I would have sold it back already...
Believe the critiques about the game being incredibly linear because it is. There is absolutely no place to deviate from the main path(at least for the first 18 hours I've played so far...) It's almost like I'm interacting with a CG movie the whole time. What's worse, the first 3-5 hours of game play involved ridiculously easy battles where all you do it hit the X button multiple times and count to 20. If it were any other game, I would have stopped playing it right there.
I don't want to go into too much more detail to avoid any spoilers but all I can say is that if you've played all of the Final Fantasy series like I have, this game may disappoint you. IMO Final Fantasy XII was a drastic but reasonable change from all the previous games. This one is just way off though. All the things I liked about Final Fantasy games have either been taken away or are dumbed down. I feel the only way I would like this game is if I was 10 years old again.
Because I'm a huge FF buff, I'll certainly play through the rest of it. I may even update my review but I doubt my feelings will change. I can say for certain that there is absolutely NO WAY I will ever replay this game though. I may even put the game on hold when the Dragon Age Origins expansion comes out in a couple days. Now there's an RPG with replay value! Why Square deviated so far off track is beyond me. They did a pretty decent job with the latest Star Ocean. They did great with FFX and FFXII was good as well with the exception of the exploits. Square's previous president did a heck of a job with Lost Odyssey, and it was turn based! If it ain't broke, don't fix it Square! We still like the old style of RPGs!
Update 3/21: I'm upgrading my score from 6.0 to 7.0 based on the great storyline and attention to detail of the graphics and music. I will give S-E huge props for all of that. I still stand by all my earlier comments though and I'm now 25 hours in. At least by this point there is sufficient enough battle options to prevent just mashing the X button the whole time. Some boss battles are pretty challenging but the regular battles are relatively easy. The game is still excessively linear though and I would like to see a side quest at some point...
Update 4/4: Well, after 33 hours of gameplay, the game finally got really interesting and is(for the first time) not linear in which direction I need to go! It's about time! I think this will be a lot of fun from here on out but jeez did it take a while! Glad I gave it a shot....