Spoilers, obviously.
This is one of my favorite games.
Pros:
1. The story is fantastic. You fall in love with the characters almost immediately, especially Lea. It will leave you on the edge of your seat right up to the end.
2. The combat is smooth and you can vary it up quite a bit.
3. The NG+ system is the best I've ever seen. The power-ups lead to some hilarious dialogue changes.
4. The puzzles are fun, to an extent.
5. The DLC is solid, even though the ending is kinda bad.
6. The dungeons are fun, with one exception.
7. Lots of side quests.
8. Lots of equipment to find the mats for.
9. Great overworld with tons of little secrets to find.
10. Great enemy variety.
11. The game looked beautiful.
Cons:
1. The DLC ended the story extremely suddenly and with more holes than swiss cheese. Lea's story is not resolved, by any means. They even flat-out say so. Her fate is still unknown, as are the fates of all the other Evotars. We resolve the story of another party member and in doing so we kill the big baddie. Great, but that didn't resolve Lea's story.
It felt like if (OG) FF7 ended the story upon killing Hojo, rather than upon killing Sephiroth. The game spent all that time building up the battle against Sephiroth, only to not give it to you.
Can we please get a book or another DLC or something to actually finish Lea's story? We spend the entirety of the OG game and the DLC getting invested, only to be left hanging. Ouch. It was one of the few games where the credits started rolling and I was like "Wait, what?"
2. While the puzzles were fun, they violated the rule of "Too much of a good thing is a bad thing". There were just too many, completely ruining the pacing. The DLC dungeon was the worst offender, with puzzle after puzzle after puzzle after puzzle where there was just the slightest bit difference between them. I was actually pretty bored by the time I got to the boss. I don't want a mindless hack-and-slash game, but more balance between the two would have been nice.
I'd give the game a 5, but, man, that DLC dungeon and especially that DLC ending were just...not good.
4.5