For me, this is very striking.
It's true that I don't know the Dresden Files game, and have only read the Fate Core rulebook. But 8 hours seem very long to me.
I feel a strong contrast with games I've played where things have started moving pretty quickly. In
Cortex+ Heroic I brought along PCs I had written up to be usable either in a fantasy Vikings or a fantasy Japan situation, the players opted for Vikings, chose their PCs, I asked them what the trouble was that had brought them to the village ready to head out on a quest, we spent again maybe 10 minutes triangulating their answers, then I framed the first scene (I drew on some basic imagery from D&D module G1).
In
Classic Traveller, the PCs rolled up PCs, I rolled up a starting world, we spent maybe 10 minutes setting the scene, then I rolled up a random patron and we went from there; I had rolled three worlds in advance, and used them to help frame the situation.
We've also started
Prince Valiant and
Torchbearer with PC gen then
go!, though in the first case I used some scenarios from the core rulebook and the Episode Book, and in the second case I used the Tower of the Stars from the Cartographer's Companion book - though I did make up a social encounter that is not in the book to be the first scene of the game.
It makes me feel that
situation rather than
setting is what takes precedence in my RPGing.