I think it's a bad trend when jrpgs are made to be a "wait to Chapter 11 for the good stuff" kind of jrpg. This is a symptom of jrpgs intentionally putting in a bunch of padding and filler in games to appease hardcore gamers (a small segment) who whine that the game would be too short otherwise ("waaah i completed this 30 hour main story in less than one week. waahh. That's not enough! I need a 50+ hour main story and 100+ hours worth of side quests!). Most gamers don't spend all of their free time on video games. Most people have other hobbies too. Most gamers are willing to sacrifice quantity for quality. That's why the most popular games don't tend to be very long.
As for FF13 in particular, I'm Gameflying so I don't care. If I don't like it, I can always send it back and get a new game in my hand. No commitments.
