When I think of linear dungeons I think of Final Fantasy X (eg Mi'hen Highroad and Macalania Woods) and to be honest, I preferred them to the soulless mazes of the very non-linear FFXII. Still, variation and exploration are both good things, and I'll be miffed if there are no hidden goodies to root out. I don't think we can really judge the game based on a couple of strat guide scans though. A lot of people are saying that there is a huge wide open area similar in size to the Calm Lands of FFX in the game, and I am really looking forward to exploring that.

I've also heard there are no towns, and I'm really disappointed in that, as I love seeing a variety of towns and settlements, just milling about and chatting it up with NPCs.

Auto-healing after battles is a fantastic feature and I'm glad they put it in. Saves me the bother of going to the menu and selecting "use potion" until my potions run out, then "use cure" until my MP runs out. Yawn. The battles are apparently very tough, too, and to me this sounds like an improvement. I prefer the idea of the challenge coming from winning battles rather than resource management.