My favorite complaint so far has to be one guy saying combat is almost entirely hands off - going so far as to say it mostly runs itself - while simultaneously complaining about boring drawn out fights with small foes. It's almost like those shiny arts at the bottom are important or something :P

Forgive for not reading the previous 20 pages, but can someone explain the data packs?

They speed up loading afaik, yet by how much?
Can they really not be installed from disc?
The last 2 months of the year are very tight with my internet data caps, 11 GB is a lot.

Should I wait until Januari to play this?

Anyway the game got an essential from Eurogamer
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-11-30-xenoblade-chronicles-x-review
Doesn't count anymore since they chickened out of giving scores, yet still great.

Some of these reviews are just weird. I definately don't agree with criticizing the off the hands design choice and complexity of the game. It's like complaining about a party game being too shallow, or a deep strategy game for having a learning curve.

But the important thing is that the game seems to be fantastic 

Just one.  All the 10s are the same review translated.  The 9 will be counted as it is a different review.

No one I've seen has criticized the game for being too complicated. It's criticizing the game for being obtuse about its systems. You should be able to learn a games systems organically throughout the gameplay experience, with the game's challenge scaling appropriately along with your assumed knowledge. That's good game design. Needing to read a 50 page external manuel to get a full understanding of all of the game's complex systems is terrible game design. It's lazy game design.

It may not be an issue for me personally, because I spend hours reading up on game systems of complex RPGs before playing them just as a preference, but you should absolutely never have to leave the game world to learn about something integral to playing or enjoying the game.

Keeping in mind its lowest score is a 70 so far, I don't think the challenge is gamebreaking and more of just a minor obstacle.

I'm sure it isn't. I also don't see anyone calling it too difficult. Just too obtuse for a game with rules and systems as complex and plentiful as this.

True enough, I'm excited for the challenge. Its been a long time since we haven't had handholding. People seem to forget that Xenogears was pretty obtuse in the player learning of its game mechanics as well.

I wouldn't call that a good thing. Xenoblade 1 didn't have this problem, and it was a complex JRPG too.

I wouldn't call it challenging at all. There's nothing difficult about reading a manual. There's also nothing fun, engaging, or immersive about reading a manuel, hence the issue.

So, yeah, the main criticism is totally fair. I personally think that was the main problem with the first Xenoblade, you have to put an extra effort to learn a lot of things. A good game design implies that you don't have to read the manual to learn the most complex gameplay mechanics of the game. At, least, in my opinion. I don't mind about that, but it's something to be noted. Well, reading the reviews I'm even more excited about the game. The criticisms, although valid, won't be an obstacle to enjoy the game.