Sony is fairly good at taking what other companies do and making it work well for them, but this game was not one of those times.

It has tight controls, adequate representations of Sony franchises, and is entirely void of personality
Entirely void of personality–absolutely dead-on. This is why it’s such an uncompelling poo.

Few people want to hear thirty minutes of lore before they play whether or not they find the story or the game interesting. Better to release information at the pace the story requires. Other recent sci-fi examples of this excellent technique include Transistor which was occasionally and unfortunately criticized for this method.
No, you’re quite right. Gamers are a mercurial sort, and will typically complain no matter what. But behind the complaining (which comes regardless) there are decisions that are actually better than others. FFXIII really fell down the stairs when it started pontificating at length (at great length, sometimes for MANY MINUTES) at the player. It was best when it was tight and when its cutscenes were not there merely to declare world/setting, but to set the context for the player’s action. Consider the difference between the opening of the game with Lightning on the train: there, the cutscenes are very good–they provide the context for immediate action, and deliver world details organically, as part of the sort of dialogue we would expect in that circumstance, whilst also building interest in the setting which the player can indulge through the Database in the menu.
But then consider the long, rambling, discursive dialogue sequences where the players are essentially just babbling backstory at each other. One could argue (pretty weakly, I suspect) that these are necessary moments of ‘character building’, but they seem like (and probably are) just a ham-handed way of cramming lots of Important World Backstory down the throat of The Player. Lazy writing. Not integrated at all, really.
Transistor is rightly to be praised for doing this right (Bastion was a model of it, and it is not surprising that the follow-up did a similarly good job), and it is encouraging to see that Velocity does so also.

TxK
This is actually a great game if you are a fan of the old school arcade shooter. Gyruss (another great shooter-in-the-round) took some ideas from that older title into its own creation. Don’t look for story here. Like the classic arcade shooters, it is a series of challenges which rewards dexterity and the skill that comes from repeat play. This is what a ‘pure game’ looks like.

Don’t Starve/Hoard/SportFriends
Stopped caring. Don’t care about these. Poopity poopity poo~~~!

This is why I am second-guessing my time with the “premium” service.
This is *precisely* why I do not have PS Plus anymore. Also, if a game is good enough to spend my time playing, I would like to own it–not perpetually rent it by paying a subscription fee.