Other M being different or FFXIII having bad design is irrelevant. I have already said that the gameplay part is not what's bothering me.
Look it's the same thing for a movie trailer. You don't know every detail about the story but what they've shown you can displease you and you can take a disliking of the overall idea and how it is done.
Cutscenes/storywise, I don't like how they look, how they are directed, what it is said and how it is said, and everytime they have shown something on that front I have been bored or rolled my eyes.
I don't see anything either smart, concise, interesting or even visually pleasing. As far as I'm concerned it's the opposite. It's more shit like what's in the late xenoblade parts. I have endured way too many games (especially japanese) like that to not recognize it when I see it.
Maybe it'll be like Xenoblade and the worst chunk will be confined to the later parts (after all considering who's behind it it's a given) and it'll be fine. Only this time for me characters won't get me to swallow it because bleh, they seem more annoying than anything else.