I've had the game since Saturday. The game is less RPG, more Dungeon Crawler.. Unfortunately it'll be the only FF game I don't replay through.
No cities, no side quests, no world map, even freedom of choosing where to go is out of the window.
The game is pretty much follow where to go, maybe do a couple 'missions' which is basically the FFXII hunts.
On a positive note, the graphics and storyline are amazing, Sazh's voice acting is one of the best in any FF game to date, Vanille's accent may drive some people berserk.
Battles are pretty straight forward, most of the time it's press A/O, add a few shoulder button presses in now and then to change job rolls. If you played Star Ocean 3, you could have a general idea how battles are played out, just minus the freedom of movement yourself.
Really, a step back from even FF1, could of made a good film though.