From my experience, criterion (normal) seems to be in between a savage and an ultimate. Is this correct? You have savage-level difficulty with the bosses, but with multiple in succession and you can't take a break like a raid tier. Savage is similar to normal but with no resurrection.

While it's admirable that Square Enix is putting in more hard content, it seems like this will divide the player base further between raiders and non-raiders. There's already a steep learning curve between normal and endgame content. The difference between variant and criterion dungeons are extremely steep. Many people will like this, and that's fine, but I don't see this content retaining popularity since there's not a lot of reward for clearing. At least Square Enix gave it a shot, and that's something. There's not much else they can do before 6.3.