Fantasy XIII is major improvement over its predecessor in a big way.

• The Good: Visuals is something worth admiring, Full of twists and turns, the story in this game is what you have come to expect from a Final Fantasy game, better (though it’s hard to call it the best) leveling systems in the Final Fantasy franchise.
• The Bad: Battle game play has some flaws but only seems to effect one fight, but it is glaringly awful.

Last paragraph:-
"Since this game isn’t available in the US or other regions until March, the only way to play this game at the time of this posting is to A) be in the gaming industry or gaming journalism industry and get an advanced copy or B) import the game from Japan. The good news is that the PS3 version of the game (the only version available in Japan) is completely region free, as are all PS3 games. This means that if you have an American or European PS3, the game will play just fine in your system. This certainly lends it some “import friendliness”. But, since this is an RPG with an involved story, it has LOTS of Japanese text and voices. You will not understand the story and may even get confused as to what you’re supposed to do if you don’t understand a fair amount of Japanese. Can you still get through it and enjoy the gameplay without knowing Japanese? With some experimentation, sure. But you won’t get the story, which I’ve already said is the best part of this release. If you can understand Japanese, though, you should go ahead and buy Final Fantasy XIII (maybe even with the FFXIV beta application code, if you can still get a first print copy) especially since the English voice acting isn’t quite as good (minor complaint) and they changed the main theme song (bigger complaint) in the English version of the game. If you can’t understand Japanese, or can’t afford to import (it is more expensive), just wait a couple more months until the game comes out in your own region. It will be worth the wait, even with the unfortunate changes."

http://gamingbolt.com/2010/01/27/final-fantasy-xiii-reviewed/

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=99341&page=1&str=1028703345

I think all these sites should honestly just wait for the NA version before reviewing it

anyway his last paragraph, towards the end where he says:

"English voice acting isn’t quite as good (minor complaint) and they changed the main theme song (bigger complaint) in the English version of the game"

what a joke, how is changing a song that affects 2 min of the game a bigger complaint than slightly less better VA's than the japanese one I'll never know