As long as the story is good, characters are interesting, gameplay runs smoothly and graphics look great. The game can be as linear as it wants to be.

Even more linear than Pong?

Looks like the Order is next after Watch Dogs, Destiny on the irrational hate bandwagon..Since when is linear bad? Not everything needs to be open world... We saw 1 2 minute scene designed to show off the engine, enemies, and yes cinematic gameplay. Uncharted also has parts like that but it has a tonne of amazing gameplay, the jumping to conclusions, irrational bashing of this game is along the lines of alan wake, uncharted, TLOU and all proved how foolish those people were.

Maybe the game will disappoint, but we simply don;t know that based off what they have shown, they have stated there is a lot more to it gameplay wise.

I do have concerns that this title will be a bit too cinematic. As in, you will lose full or partial control of your character far too often, as they insert a stream of closely connected gameplay segments with stylish cut scenes and quick time events in equal supply.

The E3 trailer looked very good, but they need to be willing to let the player make mistakes and try different things, even if it goes against their vision of a perfectly tightly controlled experience.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2014/06/13/the-order-1886s-cto-talks-linearity-gameplay-and-more-ps4-best-console-ever-made-by-sony/

"He also explained that there are moments that are very linear, like what was shown on stage, which is a part of the game that focuses on telling the story, but it’s indeed just a part of the game, and not all of it is like that. It’s actually “quite the opposite.”

Many here and on the internet will look foolish when this game drops, the whole game is not like the cinematic parts, there is nothing wrong with certain parts being cinematic and linear for story telling, but they have stated it is just that certain sections.