XIII is bold, and that's fine. I don't mind linearity, I play my RPGs for the story, and if XIII focusses 90% on that, all the better. XII is the only game in the series where I clocked 150 hours + because I wanted to do all sidequests. In a game the style of X or XIII, I don't want to do this, so a heavy focus on the story is good.

Of course I won't defend or crack the game down till I played it myself next week, but I do feel critics are complaining a tad too much at times, sometimes for stupid reasons. Like Gamespot. It made Vanille a "the bad" of XIII. Instant fail, as Vanille clearly rules.