Great point on story not being able to carry a game for 60 hours. (I won't even get into my thoughts about the story not being good). I don't really like the combat system all that much, but I can't bring myself to be too hard on it. Quite frankly JRPGs are going down the tube market share wise. You can argue why, but quite frankly it is common industry knowledge that they have to do something. They attempted to innovate, plain and simple. Did they have a runaway success? I say no. But they tried.

Saying that the story is inherently worse than cinema or books because it's in a video game makes me want to smack you both.
Trying to use movie cutsceens to tell a story in a video game is just like copying a movie. Movies use visuals and audio stimulus to tell stories in the way books never could, likewise books use the ability to tell longer more intricate stories the way movies could never keep our attention for. For video game story telling to excel they need to do stuff that you can't do in books and cinema. FFXIII seems like it tells it's story in a movie wannabe format. Half of the cutsceens seem completely missable too.
Is video game story inherently worse? Hell no! Will it exceed movies by trying to copy them? Not a chance.
It seem like play the game->watch a scene->play the game->watch a scene-> you know the drill. Storytelling is completely divorced from game play. Stuff such as how the characters make comments as you run around the field go a million times further to flesh out their character than a whole bunch of pointless cutsceens interrupting the game.

let's start a hate Lightning faction too, okay? Then it's fair.
Where have you been? I've heard lots of people complain about her.

This is not unrealistic, I've seen other teenagers do the same. So yeah, maybe he unrightly blames Snow. So does Lightning. And in fact, blaming someone unrightfully happens all the time in real life. It's realistic.
I don't think anyone is complaining that it is unrealistic, just that it isn't enjoyable to sit through. I personally play games in my leisure time to experience stories and characters I like. If I want 100% realistic I will go talk to real people.

One scene in (SPOILER) I feel bad for all the people out there who genuinely and honestly play for the "story" when there's so much wonderful literature and cinema in the world.
After that scene I vividly remember thinking "why did they even include that in the game?".