A game with a lot of potential, terribly let down by its own horrible pacing.
FF 13 does a lot right. The combat system, while rather button mashy in the early game really picks up later. It can be challenging when it needs to be, but easy going once you got stuff out leveled and such. Graphics are very good, some of the best around. Even the general story is fairly good.
Where FF falls flat on its face is the pacing. The game is a long slog to reach what I would say is the fully unlocked point. I spent nearly 4 hours before I could even level up! Now, second time through, granted, I cut that time considerably, but it still took over an hour. And it doesn't end there. You have to unlock various crystarium levels, and jobs which all takes many more hours. Further making this annoying is that total linearity you have to deal with through that whole period. Now, previous FF's had some heavy linearity too (FF X was much the same), but they just weren't this bad, either giving you small open spots to play in for a while, and most often not hemming you in so badly with your character development. Once you do get everything unlocked, and into the more open world area, it actually picks up quite nicely, but it is just too late to forgive.
In an odd way, thinking back to my recent Dragon Age: Origins review, I must say that these two games could really learn from each other as many of the best points in the one, was weak in the other. Dragon Age actually had near perfect pacing in retrospect, but fell terribly in it's AI design. FF has terrible pacing, but the AI design is very good. You get much the same in the story, with better dialog and characters in DA, but a better and more original world and general story line in FF. All in all, while they are two games quite different in the genera, they are basically the same quality due to things they just didn't get right.
Still, it was enjoyable enough, but your enjoyment will be very dependent on your patience.