My friend told me that Final Fantasy 13 was released in Japan, and he said he heard it sucks.?

Do you think hes telling the truth, or what? I mean, I pre-ordered the game, expecting it to be great, at least it looked good on the trailer, he said he heard that the story line was bad, that you couldn't go back and visit an area in the game, and that the gameplay is also sucky as well... he said "It's worse then Final Fantasy 10-2 AND 12". Do you think he's telling the truth, exaggerating, or just plain lying?