Today was my first experience at the long-awaited ...

Today was my first experience at the long-awaited cinemas in Littleton. The movie was very good. However, the ticket sales and seating were misleading. Arriving 30 minutes before showtime, we were told by the cashier that the only 2 seats available together were in the first row and assigned us seat numbers. We decided to take them since we already had dinner reservations afterwards. We entered the theater and it may have been 30% filled. I checked again just as the movie began - less than 50% occupied. And there were several rows in the higher tier of seats that had 2 to 5 adjacent seats. Is it O'Neil Cinemas' policy to fill the front rows first? Reclining seats or not, sitting in the front row is uncomfortable and the movie looks distorted viewing a curved screen that close. I'm not going to pay a service fee to buy tickets in advance and reserve better seats. The couple behind us were told the same thing.