This Final Fantasy is a huge hit or miss with the community. I'd say I'm probably on the side of the community that really enjoys the game. There are several reasons why I really love this game, and there are a few reasons that I can really hate this game.
First, the music to this game is absolutely phenomenal. This soundtrack to this day is one of my favorite FF soundtracks. The song that plays when you boot up the game "The Promise" is by far one of my favorite tracks that I've ever listened to. Along with this, the battle theme "Blinded by Light" is definitely up there for my favorite battle themes. If there's anything I know I like to make sure a game has is a great soundtrack and if it's good enough to listen to when I'm not playing, I know it's that good. "Nascent Requiem" is by far one of the best ending boss themes to the game with the phenomenal use of the orchestra to really let known that this is going to be an intense battle. Personally, my favorite track in this game either has to be "The Promise" or "Can't Catch a Break".
Secondly, I love the aesthetics to the game. The scenery in this game is easily on the franchise's best. The Archlyte Steppes has some of the best scenery I could ever imagine being in a Final Fantasy game, along with other locations in the game such as the Gapra Whitewood and the Sunleth Waterscape. Each of the areas in this game have a certain aesthetic to them varying from a bustling city in Nautilus to a more reserved setting such as that of the Fifth Ark.
Third, I actually really enjoyed the weapon system that they had in this game. Yes it is takes a fair amount of grinding to really get any great weapons later in the game (but by the point you're trying to get ultimate weapons, you're trying to do the hardest hunts in the game and trying to defeat the incredibly difficult Long Gui for the first time), however I really enjoy leveling my weapons and gear to make myself ridiculously overpowered.
There are however a few things that I didn't enjoy about this game (which shouldn't discourage getting this game but I don't just want to write a review where I'm just endlessly praising the game).
First, the cast of characters. I do enjoy Lightning as a main character don't get me wrong (even though people in the community love to call her female Cloud due to her personality and her being a soldier), however it's just that the main cast just feels so weak compared to some of the other games in the series. The main cast for the most part have one or two important things going on but then later on in the game, it doesn't really feel like they're there to do anything and the focus really shifts towards Lightning for the most part.
Second, the Crystarium. Now this is the main leveling system in XIII and this is a hit or miss thing for me about this game. It is easily the most tedious leveling I've ever done in any of these games. And not only that, but leveling the 6 main characters secondary roles makes me want to vomit how many Crystarium points it takes just to even gain one small node in the Crystarium. For me, by the time I maxed out everyone's Crystarium, there was just about nothing to do in the game besides kill the Long Gui, or go defeat Vercingetorix. Along with this, for me there are just certain party configurations that just seem better to me than others (Lightning, Hope, and Fang for me) just to have Lightning who's pretty good overall in most of the roles (especially Ravager), Hope who has easily the best magic stats in the game, and Fang who easily has the highest strength stats in the game.
Third, the game is fairly linear for what it is. The story chapters play very linearlly and not only that, but any area before Chapter 11, you can't go back to which is quite a bummer considering some of the areas before then are absolutely gorgeous.
Overall, there are so many other things I could go into about this game, but this is just a small piece of what I want to say, and I would definitely recommend playing this. The PC port for this is very stable and it looks fantastic on PC. I may have only put in 50 or so hours into this port of the game but on Xbox 360 and PS3 I've put in well over 500+ or so into it with all the achievements on all 3 of these ports. I still have a lot of fun going through this game, even for the faults that it may have, but then again all the Final Fantasy games have at least one fault in them, even VII (I know blasphemy right?).

Final Fantasy VIII was one of the first Final Fantasy games I ever played (along with VII), and even after all the years that have passed since I first picked up this game and have played more and more Final Fantasy games in the series, I always find myself coming back and playing this game. This game was something special for me, maybe it was because it was one of the first RPG's that I ever played or some other reason, but this game has not lost its luster to me. I absolutely love this game and I very much recommend to anyone who is wanting to start playing a game in the Final Fantasy series.
A lot of the things that I love about this game is the story (the only few complaints that I may have is for people new to this game, the story may be a little hard to follow at certain points, and people like to complain about how much of an emo that the main character happens to be which kind of turns some people off to this game), the cast of characters range from emotionless to flameboyant, the magic system is a good change of pace from the typical MP system that had been a part of the games before for a very long time, and overall is a nice change of pace from a lot of the other games in the series as this game tries to blend fantasy with realism (the cities for instance show many signs of fantasy and realism in them), plus the soundtrack is beautifully composed. However the one major complaint I have about this port is the butchering of said soundtrack (which I recommend to anyone to go and get the Roses and Wine mod which replaces the butchered soundtrack with the original). Overall, this game is something special and I think for anyone who is either new to the series, or someone who's played Final Fantasy games before but has never picked this game up, I highly recommend playing it, it's a game that can be played over and over again, either trying to play seriously, or waste away playing Triple Triad.