I seriously doubt Square-Enix are going to make the same mistakes in terms of linearity again. It will also be kind of hard to explain why nobody is speaking to them now that they are no longer l'Cie.

What is making me most curious is that both the noises coming out of Square and the epilogue in the International Version make it sound like there are only going to be 2 playable characters, which should make for an interesting battle system.