I tend to play through the first parts of a video game fairly quickly, but my interest wanes more towards the end. Wild ARMs 3 is a good recent example. I am on Deus Ex Machina with about 18 hours of playtime, half of which was spent doing Millenium Puzzles, the first 10 Teleport Towers, discovering most of the map, and flying around in circles going "WHEEE" on Lombardia.