Awfully weak story... or is it? [WARNING:SPOILERS]

[Enkidoh]

The thing is, that 'light side-dark side' thing worked well for TOR, being both a Bioware game (who have made something of a tradition of that style of RPG - using a literal DnD based battle system), and a Star Wars title, so it fits the canon.

For FFXIV however, we're all on the same side here. We're all adventurers with the Echo who are potentially targets for extermination by the Garleans (this was stated specifically in 1.0) - there's no variance in that, simply because the storyline doesn't accept it.

Complain that the storyline is 'bad' because of it if you must, but just remember that this is a Final Fantasy game - there is no choice to play as 'villains' instead of the 'good guys' - no 'Alliance/Horde' system here, it's the nature of the beast.