Forgive me, but all Final Fantasies are very linear JRPG's. My favourite in the entire series is FFVI, and even it only trully opened up after you get to The World of Ruin, which is almost 30 hours into the game. FFXIII is the same thing, the game opens up at Chapter 11, which is also 30 hours into the game.

"Forgive me, but all Final Fantasies are very linear JRPG's."

No, just plain linear, not "very" linear. FFVI didn't have dungeons that were nearly straight lines. And it didn't prevent backtracking until you got far enough.

Once again, those dungeons only opened up in the World of Ruin. World of Balance was pretty linear, the dungeons, the flow of the history, even the part in which your party splits into three diferent scenarios when you're escaping from the Empire after meeting with Banon. 

That's part of a FF tradition, the first dungeons are always pretty linear, but as the game nears a specific point, everything starts opening up. The same happens with FFXIII, Chapter 11 and onwards cuts with the linearity of the past chapters, opening up a very wide world to explore and some very non-linear dungeons. 

"World of Balance was pretty linear"

Hang on. I mean linear here in the context of exploration. If you mean linear as on "the story is linear", that applies to almost any RPG. I mean the exploration is almost gone in FFXIII, and the flow is to rush you to the next cutscene, which is not the case with other FF games.

No, no, no, i'm actually meaning in terms of exploration. I agree that FFVI didn't have that much cutscenes per se, but it did have some long ones, especially Cyan's hometown poisoning, the Resistance meeting and so on.

Also, the part in the game in where you get Setzer's Airship - Finding the Empire's base - Opening up the Esper World portal - Finding the Goddesses Statues - Entering World of Ruin - Celes solitude - Finding your party members in World of Ruin it's filled with sequences and cutscenes, it almost get to a point in which you play for 10 minutes, enter cutscene, 10 minutes, more cutscenes. 

"Also, the part in the game in where you get Setzer's Airship - Finding the Empire's base - Opening up the Esper World portal - Finding the Goddesses Statues - Entering World of Ruin - Celes solitude - Finding your party members in World of Ruin it's filled with sequences and cutscenes, it almost get to a point in which you play for 10 minutes, enter cutscene, 10 minutes, more cutscenes."

That doesn't take town, dungeon crawling, and level grinding into account, and after you first escape from the empire castle, the Blackjack fan fly all around the world. Don't tell me that is not exploration. And when you get the Falcon, it's nothing but exploration. Don't tell me that game doesn't have loads of exploration.

Yes and you explore what exactly? What do you get to open with both the Falcon and the Blackjack? nothing actually, unless you get back to the story.

Only the world of ruin actually opens something for exploration when you get the airship there, you'll open up the Colosseum, the 8 elemental dragons, the extra Espers and so on.

Also, if you're taking about Dungeon Crawling and Level Grinding into account, then why are you calling FFXIII very linear? You'll have some massive level grinding in some chapters, and even though the dungeons per se are linear, some of them are huge. You'll do tons of dungeon crawling in FFXIII. Once more, it's still like any other FF game, the only actual thing that it doesn't have is town exploration, other than that, it feels exactly like any other FF game.

"Yes and you explore what exactly? What do you get to open with both the Falcon and the Blackjack? nothing actually, unless you get back to the story."

Side areas. Returning to spots in towns you couldn't reach before due to various reasons. Exploring dungeons you might have rushed through before to see what treasures you missed.

God, did you even pay attention to all the stuff that was in the game?

And level grinding is not a counter to being linear. I don't think you even understand what linear and exploration mean.

I feel bad for the people who hyped up this game so much and are now ruining the game for themselves by reading everything they can find that critiques it.

smart people keep expectations low and just wait to see how things unfold, it's pre-ordered, it will arrive at my door, I'll play it, beat it, then wait for them to announce the super international version, as usual.....