FF13 looks nice and has a nice story from what I read on so far, but other than characters and story, it doesn't really have much to offer in interesting combat, since FFXII SE is trying hard to make an interesting combat but fails on the simply stuff they were doing up till FF9 in combat style, and the only interesting thing was in FFX-2 with the changing class in-battle and anything afterwards started to be cheap.
Wait, let me get this right. You're commenting on a game you haven't even played yet? Seriously, aren't there enough threads in this forum where you're actually able to reign in with a rightful opinion?
If he's done research on the game like reading reviews and watching videos, why not? If those things didn't actually inform people on the game, then they wouldn't exist.
Plus, in modern world, with current state of shitty games in the market, who buys a cat in a bag ?
I research every game I buy, or don't buy. Some I don't even play. Internet is a very powerful tool, and Youtube is there filled with plenty of video on everything, starting from intro movie through cutscenes to the combat videos and the endings.
Technically you don't even need to play any game as long as you can watch many videos from it and make your opinion based on your observations. Face it, the world moves on, you should step ahead or you are going to be left behind.