It's a bland, featureless, empty corridor. Now, so you know what I'm talking about, let me bring up another game: FFX. FFX is a memorable, exciting corridor, filled with tons of interesting people and things to do.

FFXIII is empty. There are more player characters in the world than their are NPCs (ok, not quite. I think the NORA team technically edges the count toward the NPCs). The majority of the game's meaningful dialogue actually comes from a bunch of frelling floating rocks on Pulse. How screwed up is that?

Oh, and the combat is fun, but the Crystarium is way too restrictive. The combat doesn't really get enjoyable until endgame, when you actually have enough abilities that you can use the system. Also, I dislike how the system punishes trying to take direct control of battles. FFX-2 was a much better execution of a similar concept.

And, while I don't mind the linearity (I did love FFX, again), I do think it got absolutely ridiculous. Also, FFX used it's linearity better. FFX was a journey, a trail to the final Aeon and the battle against Sin. You're on a set mission and path, so linear makes sense. In XIII, 95% of the game is spent trying to figure out WTF your team's focus is (because for some reason, the Fal'Cie choose not to just tell you), and you have no goal in mind. If ever a game called for mindless wandering instead of linearity, this one is it.