I'm usually fine with it. In RPGs I'm fine with a mostly linear path as long as the game opens up at some point to allow me to freely travel anywhere. FFX did a good job of this. FFXIII did not.

Most games are usually designed to be linear or open world and I'm fine with either. I tend to gravitate toward the more linear games only because I get overwhelmed when the world is too 'open' since I like doing everything I possibly can in a game.