Expectations and hype are probably where a lot of the criticism of FF12 comes from. People get the game thinking that it should have all of the common story elements that FFs tend to have like love stories, a sole villain who wants power, etc, and when they play FF12 and see that it doesn't and that it's story flows a bit differently, they bash it and are disappointed. Same with the hype. People are expecting it to be greater than life and completely flawless (it's FF, of course it must be), but when they discover that it isn't, they conclude that it's not as good as past FFs.

I realize that there is a fair share of people who played the game and just didn't fancy it for whatever reasons, but it just seems to me that there are alot of people who didn't like it because of their expectations.

That's why when I play games like this, I forget about all of the hype it gets and how great or poor past games have been, and I begin playing with the simple expectations of a fun and enjoyable game. Nothing else. It's not until I've played a game for several hours and have seen most of the aspects that I develop an opinion on it.

So far, I think FF12 is a fantastic game and definitely one of my favorites.