See, I actually liked FF13. Yes, it was linear, but then again, so were all the FF games to a point. You just have the illusion of free will, because you can't see the walls that are forcing you down a particular route.
FF13 removed those walls a little late for my liking, I honestly didn't notice them being removed until after the end credits, and my NG+ save kicked in.
And I liked the Paradigm. You got to play around with different group balances without having to suffer Game Overs if you made a particularly bad set of choices. It also made the battles more varied, as different stages of boss fights needed different Paradigms. You just can't get that with the pre-battle planning that most games have. Especially not when you develop characters to the point when they're useless in other roles.
And the scores... This is why I don't use numbers. Giving something 40/40 infers that it's perfect. No game is ever perfect. Even the highest mark I've used (A-Extra) still gives room for faults. It's just that the particular area is outstanding, and needs some special attention.
And chances are that if a site constantly reviews an entire series high, then you've got a fanboy reviewing it, which is going to throw all the scores miles off. Best to have 2-3 people reviewing it, like some of the magazines used to with bigger titles, and aggregate the scores.