I read through all your wall text, but I seriously can't, and don't have the patience for, go for each point highlighting things I agree and disagree with you.

Instead of all that, I merely say this: Final Fantasy XIII is a game. A game that the mainstream media liked, yet long-time Final Fantasy fans seems to hate (though Brendude or Outlawaron actually love the game, for example). It is a game that some people liked, others hated.

You didn't like the art direction, you didn't like the voice acting/music. You didn't like the story that was presented at you. You think the gameplay is shallow. You admit that it is the simplest of RPGs though (guess interactive dramas can be gaming-considered RPGs now). The game frustrated you.

You think the game is bad and that's okay. But that doesn't mean the game is bad. The game merely is what it is: a game. The game is not a bad game objectively.

You think the game is bad and I like the game. That's what everything is to it. I don't mind people hatin' on the game. My point was, this is not an objectively bad game, because "being objective" and "bad" in the same sentence carries out such inmense implications, and we fall again to the subjective plane. Simple.

Everything you said here, your empirical experience on the matter, is purely subjective. Disliking the art direction, disliking the voice acting, disliking the story, disliking the gameplay. That's subjective. It doesn't have anything to do with the game being bad. The game isn't bad. It isn't good either. That's up for the player to decide.

That's the point I was arguing against though. The OP completely believes that Final Fantasy XIII is an objectively bad game, that can be compared with Ride to Hell: Retribution or Big Rigs: Over the Road racing (Which are not games, but unfinished products rushed to the market).

That's it.

I don't mind people disliking a game. Hell, I could be the one that likes the game for all it is and I'd still respect the opinion of everyone else. But don't come at me and tell me that objectively, the game is bad. That's just bullshit.

I've always said this, FF13 isn't a bad game.  It's a bad Final Fantasy.  BUT to me bad games have to really screw you over (Star Ocean 3 and Breath of FIre 5 come to mind) to be bad.  You can tear FF 13 apart and you can objectively say it's bad though.  I mean, I know you didn't but read what Runa wrote; there was nothing wrong with what he wrote and they are all valid criticisms.  The game structure isn't balanced and bad. The combat is only as good as your enemies, which weren't balanced and left you OP'd through 90% of the enemies in the main story (Minus bosses, they killed you good).  Story telling is bad and you have to be completely ignorant to what's said in the game to say otherwise.  Characters have little development that disappear after it happens (Seriously, look at Hope who got a bit stronger, only go cry on Pulse like a little baby).  You literally have to ignore all those criticisms (Which are a lot) to actually enjoy FF 13.  If you can you'll be left with a "good" RPG with a very bad story telling.  I can safely say though; everyone I talked to who actually liked the game's story and story telling don't actually know what happened in the game.  The game's true purpose, why Bartandalus wanted everyone dead, etc, very few people actually know.  You actually misunderstood what was happening in the story until I corrected you in this very thread, for instance.  Though you know more about the story than most people I've talked to about it.  

This game came out over 4 years ago, why are you ranting about it now? Though, I guess I can understand a little. I've gone on about how and why I dislike FF12.

But the big thing to understand about 13 is that, because of the way the combat works, your enjoyment of the game is highly dependent on your personality. There are those who like to tinker, experiment, try new things, never satisfied by just doing what works. These people enjoy FF13. Then there are those who like to find what works, and stick with it. There's no need for them to alter what they do when it works just fine. These people don't enjoy FF13.

I am one of the former, never doing things the same way twice. It drives some people crazy but that's just who I am. I quite enjoyed FF13, despite it's long list of flaws. The gameplay was enjoyable to me - constantly experimenting with paradigms and trying new things - and so I liked it. The graphics and music were a plus, too.

I couldn't play the game twice, however: it takes WAY too long to really get things going.

I did read what Runa wrote.

But I don't effectively believe that you could put XIII on a arcade machine and make it on-rails -_-"

You can tear the game effectively and discover...that it is still a game. Not good nor bad. A game. Everything that you say or believe after tearing it apart is purely subjective. Unbalanced game doesn't mean the game is bad objectively. A muddled story doesn't mean the game is bad objectively. It doesn't. Not all games need Catherine level of difficulty to be enjoyable. What if the characters were OP? What if the game was mostly easy? That doesn't make a game bad, objectively.

Easy, difficult, confusing, simple, entertaining, annoying, enjoyable, boring; all those are opinions you get after playing a game. But to say that a game is objectively bad is a paradox within itself, because saying something is bad is ultimately a subjective approach.

So I guess i'll start with X then.

Well, I agree with pretty much all of the OP.

The storytelling was what I found particularly terrible, especially for a JRPG. The story was told via long exposition filled cut-scenes and a datalog which was basically a text filled encyclopaedia. That's it. Even ignoring the fact that the story is a jumbled mess, I expect a JRPG to take advantage of the gaming medium by allowing me to discover the story through exploration and enrich the main storyline with story based side quests. None of that was possible in XIII.

Although the battle system was fun for its face paced nature, it was very simplistic with a few difficulty spikes for boss fights. There really wasn't a great deal of depth to it. If the game was only 10 hours long then the fights would have been bearable, but considering the full length of the game, it just becomes stale by the time the game opens up.

The combat and customisation mechanic being poor isn't normally a deal breaker for me; I don't consider FFVII (my personal fave FF game) to have a particularly great battle and customisation system, but the lack of customisation, simplistic battles for large periods of the game (especially considering the length) combined with the storyline issues meant it was easily the most disappointing game I've ever played.

It sucks because you are looking for reasons to hate it and want it to be something else.

When i played this game (pre ordered back then), this was the level design for the first 22 hours.

Wow, sounds like this game earned all its hate. I'm kind of torn now. I like to play good games, but sometimes I like to play games that are terrible simply because they are terrible, much like people purposefully watch bad movies. I'm especially likely to do this if it's from a series I like. Example: Other M. I love Metroid, but waited to get the game for $5 and went in with low but not abysmal expectations, and was thoroughly disappointed with the quality, but I didn't have to play the game and did anyway, completing it 100%. It's like I have a morbid curiousity to see my favorite series at their worst. Of course, XIII still isn't the worst Final Fantasy. That record belongs to the original version of XIV, holy shit. If XIII wouldn't take ungodly amounts of time to play through, I might give it the Other M treatment. It's interesting, you can learn a lot about game design by playing through horrifically flawed games like that, and it can be good for laughs and stories when you tell people just how bad things were, and how stupid the designers were. I certainly got a lot of laughs out of that OP. It's even more fun to play the terrible games with friends, and show off the worst parts.