I liked it well enough. I think Mirage actually summed it up nicely, to be honest - people who don't like the game simply will not suggest this game to anyone. It's a fairly obvious reaction.

The average modern Final Fantasy game would score around 90 on MetaCritic. FFXIII scored about 83 (going by Wikipedia). Is that terrible? No, no it's not. So as much as "haters gonna hate", if you get past the notably outspoken individuals that really found the game to be the worst thing they've ever played (or at least they come across that way), you'll find a large number of people who still enjoyed the game to a notable enough degree to balance that overall scoring to 83.

Just play the game and make up your own mind, that's the best way. I mean, I respect WK's opinion pretty highly when it comes to a lot of things and even a bunch of games, but he can't stand FFXIII while I found the game to be entertaining and enjoyable. It does lack in replay value, though, and it does feel marginally less "FF" than most of the other modern games in the series. But the characters are very FF (I'd say that as a "you are no stronger than your weakest link" train of thought, the playable cast is the best so far), the battle system is smooth and flows very nicely, the mythology is very well done and while the ending wasn't the best (but then, I rarely like FF endings), it's okay.