And I must say, Square has really gone down in quality games.  This game means well, but it was just too slopped together for my taste.  Using the time travel to travel to the same areas is just a cheap way to make a game longer by changing a few items on the same map.  The battle system is very good, however.  In my opinion, if they took the battle system and non-linear play from XIII-2 and the story and characters of XIII (minus kid Hope, he is just really annoying), there would be a very good game there.   The entire time travel and paradox is wayyyyyyyyyyyy too overplayed in this game.  It is a great idea, but Square Enix just killed it by making every possible event related to it.  I really hope they get the third installment right or Versus (if that hasn't evaporated into vaporware yet).

I actually found the game very good.

Way better than FFXIII was

QFT

I agree with the both of you.

I found it to be a good game. Needs a tad bump in difficulty but I liked it.

I'm thinking about just renting it, which I haven't done in years. It is short right? I was so disappointed in XIII so I have a hard time justifying a purchase unless it is really cheap.

Define short? It's a pretty standard length for JRPGs (30-40 hours).

I feel the exact same way, and I feel it was a lot worse compared to the first game. I would rather let Square Enix make the games they want to make, even with their flaws, rather than make a game depending on what some internet whiners dictate. Because of this, Final Fantasy XIII-2 had no direction and didn't know what it wanted to be, they added useless padding that didn't come together in the end, the story was all over the place, it destroyed the ending of the first game and left us with an even worse one. While I enjoyed some of the additions they made to XIII-2, it just felt like a huge step back, and the story was so weak I don't think I'll care that much for a XIII-3 unless it looks extremely impressive. It was still good fun, but story-wise, I'm going to pretend that the second game didn't happen.

I played FF XIII and I really liked and Lighting was one of my favorite females Characters ever. Now I am thinking about to get XIII-2. I played the the XIII-2 and liked the battle system but the character Sarah however was not really charismatic. How long does it take to beat this game?

Serah will grow on you, she is one of the best things about FFXIII-2's story.

It took me 35 hours, I'm closing in on the platinum and I'm currently at 80 hours now.