It's not overrated. If anything it's a tad underrated. I've seen many people complain about it having a weak story and/or being full of cliches. When I first finished the game I agreed with them, but once I thought about the story it's actually pretty good.

My initial problem with it was that the only other FF game I played was X, and there where several very memorable scenes. FFXII had one or two like that. Once I thought about it, however, while XII lacks these kinds of scenes it still has the best dialogue I've ever heard in a video game (it even trumps most movies - the days of all your base are gone), strong characters (Balthier, Ashe, Basch), and it handles the theme of freedom rather well (freedom from Archadia and what the resistance was willing to do for it; freedom from the undying and what Vayne and Venat were willing to do for it).

On top of that, I really enjoyed the gameplay and the hunt sidequests.

Auron FTW! Kratos clocks in at a close second though. The whole murdering his family thing is a quality I don't want to have, though.