This game is underrated just because it doesn't give a feeling of JRPG.
But when I tried it myself.... NO! It's a good game, not the best but still good.
The battle system is incredible fun! It may boring at first but after you get the party of 3 people, you'll know how fun it is. You can't defeat every enemies with weapon attack only like you can in the previous FF, you need strategy.
Graphic doesn't look perfect (compare to PC games) but still good for a PS3 game. a little bit annoying when you look at character's rough hair.
Theme songs are great! if you love classical song. especially for the battle theme/boss battle theme (search for it on Youtube)
Characters are good, you have 3 styles of woman (I prefer Vanille, she look like Rikku of FFX)
Storyline are little bit boring and maybe the only bad thing about this game, you have to travel in the endless tunnels for 70% of the game and your way is STRAIGHT to the final boss.
Difficulty of this game could kill you at some point but it will be fine if you search on youtube about how to kill each boss (in case you can't defeat it yourself), Money (Gil) in this game is very hard to earn and if you want to upgrade your weapon you need money!
I don't understand why people say this game sucks but I think it because of this game give you a feeling of a hybrid between a japanes RPG and western RPG therefore oldschool FF fans or oldschool jRPG fans don't like this game.
It's a good game, good innovative. I'll give it 8.5 out of 10
Thanks for a ton of criticism reviews from many sites, the game price was dropped to $30 so if you want to try it, just buy it. It cheap as crap but you'll enjoy it. (I'll say it again, you need to play until you get the full party of 3 people and the access to Crystalize system (or whatever it call) before you can have fun with the battle system)