There are some cool things here, but overall this game plays badly and has a nonsensical story.

The gameplay is 3rd person action combat that feels very clunky and bad.
It is cool that each character has a different weapon and combat style, but most of them feel unresponsive with long, committed animations, bad player feedback, and unpredictable controls. I found a couple that worked for me, which only served to make the combat simplistic and boring.
Enemies are repetitive and uninspired. Difficulty is uneven and unsatisfying.

The story is political drama in a military school, but there isn't much motivation behind anything that is going on. Like everything that is a part of Fabula Nova Crystallis, Final Fantasy Type-0 suffers for being founded on uninteresting, jargon-based ideas that hardly make sense and aren't effectively conveyed.
There is one interesting feature of this world -- anyone who dies is forgotten by everyone. This might be kind of cool in a more compelling setting or with characters I care about, but here it is just a novelty that doesn't matter.

There isn't a reason to play this game.

One of the most curious side stories in the Final Fantasy series, and additionally the most convoluted story I've experienced yet in the series. The game has a lot of unique and interesting ideas, and the execution is all over the place. Not much is explained, and it's my understanding that a lot of plot is left out of the game for subsequent playthroughs. I don't feel as though this lends itself well to this particular game, as a game like Nier is more streamlined & replayable than this mission-based game. However, this one playthrough was still enjoyable, as the core gameplay offers up enough excitement and entertainment to carry the game.